Seven months into the war in Ukraine, Putin has failed in another of his aims

Seven months into his euphemistically named “special military operation” in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has failed in another of his war aims. This time, however, it is not because of the doughty resistance put up by the people of Ukraine, but by his own presidential decree.

The bogus referendums in eastern provinces of Ukraine illegally occupied by Russian forces have “approved” their incorporation into the Russian Federation. This is, however, in direct contravention not only of international law but of President Putin’s own war aims. In February, during a long rambling television address, the president stated: “Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force.”

It is hardly a shock, but it underlines just how fraudulent President Putin’s rationale for war really was. His contention, reinforced to the Russian people via propaganda and a mostly compliant local media, was that Ukraine was some kind of bandit Nazi state; effectively occupied by the West and crying out for liberation by its Russian kith and kin.

Fellow Slavs in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Mariupol and countless other places were poised to rise up against their Nazi oppressors, and Volodymyr Zelensky was supposed to flee to some comfortable safe haven in the West.

It has hardly turned out like that. Indeed, there is some suggestion that even Russian-speaking elements in Donbas and Luhansk have been so appalled by Russian treatment of their friends and neighbours that they would prefer rule from Kyiv than Moscow or via local Russian-backed proxies in a puppet “people’s republic”.

At any rate, Russia has not won over hearts and minds in Ukraine, and is tacitly acknowledging not only that this is a war, and a tough one, but that it is not going well for Russia. Hence the call-up of “reservists” in recent days – and the wave of refuseniks heading for Finland, Georgia or anywhere else to avoid conscription and death.

There is increasing evidence that President Putin is rapidly losing hearts and minds in Russia itself. He is increasingly having to rely on ethnic minorities from republics within the Russian Federation, such as Dagestan, for cannon fodder. His new troops promise to be even less well equipped and trained than previous tranches. He looks like a loser, which is never good for an authoritarian nationalist leader.

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The point of incorporating Ukrainian sovereign territory into the Russian Federation is obviously to create some new deterrent to Ukrainian counterattacks, which have been spectacularly successful. Technically, the idea is that Ukrainian attacks using Western-supplied munitions could be treated by the Kremlin as an attack on the federation itself and therefore justify Russian aggression against Nato states; up to and including nuclear retaliation.

So, far from a sign of Russian strength and determination, this is a gesture of weakness. Ukraine will not be prevented from fighting for its territory; nor will Ukrainians forced against their will to be Russians just placidly accept their grim fate. The West will not ease sanctions on Russia, quite apart from the fact that Russia seems determined to sever its gas pipelines to Europe illicitly.

Nor will Nato states accept the new borders and stop lending Ukraine military, financial and intelligence aid. The sham polls and the Russian annexation of the eastern territories simply serve to illustrate that President Putin is an imperialist and a liar. He is not a man who should be allowed to bully the free world. He won’t.