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Ossetia.” The mention of these precedents did not generate particular enthusiasm, however, with just 12% in favor of this scenario.
The most commonly selected response was “This confrontation will last for many years,” with 32% choosing this option.
Yes, the Donbass is not Crimea. It appears that Russians see the solution to the “Donbass problem” to be not solving it.
2.2 Russia to permanently freeze the Donbas conflict by issuing passports
By the end of this year, as many as 1mn Ukrainians living in Russia-controlled Donbas will receive Russian passports, said Viktor Vodolatsky, the Deputy chair of Russia’s Duma Committee on CIS Affairs and Eurasian Integration (TASS), said on April 23.
“Today, 538,000 people living in the territory of Donbas are citizens of the Russian Federation,” he said. “By the end of this year, up to 1mn Donbas residents will have become Russian citizens.”
Issuing Russian passports will almost certainly lead to a permanent freeze of the conflict or possibility and annexation of the region, one of Ukraine’s most heavily industrialized regions.
The Russian government issued Russian passports to the populations of the Georgian regions of Abkhasia and South Ossetia before both those regions broke away from Georgia and became independent, in a Kremlin-backed move.
Issuing Russian passports is significant as the Russian constitution obliges the state to “protect” its citizens wherever they may be. The upshot is if Ukraine tries to retake the regions by force that would, in theory, automatically trigger a military response from Russia.
The Kremlin destabilized the region as a way of preventing Ukraine from joining Nato. Under the terms of Nato’s charter no country can join the organization as long as it has an active border dispute.
In another long-term scenario, even if Donbas remains part of Ukraine, but becomes an autonomous region with its own parliament then Russia would retain significant influence over the region. Nato and EU accession would both require the Donbas parliament to sign off and effectively have a veto over the process, thus giving the Kremlin another tool to prevent Ukraine joining Nato.
2.3 Politics - misc
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a revamp of the 2015 Minsk II accord intended to bring peace to the war-torn Donbas region with a bigger diplomatic role for the US, UK and Canada in ending the conflict. In an interview with the Financial Times as Russia began pulling back its forces from the border with Ukraine, Zelensky urged the west to back changes to the so-called Minsk II agreement between Kyiv and Moscow. The
9 UKRAINE Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com