Welcome to Pushback. I'm Aaron Mate. Joining me is Richard Sakwa. He is professor of Russian and

European politics at the University of Kent. His books include frontline Ukraine crisis in the

borderlands and his latest deception, Russia Gate and the new Cold War. Professor Sackwa, thank you once again

for joining me. My pleasure. As we were speaking, Vladimir Putin has just announced that he

is going to be recognizing these two breakaway republics in the Donbos of Ukraine. Germany has

responded that they are pausing the certification of the Nord Stream 2

gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. Your reaction to these developments? Well, it's the game

changer, even though the game doesn't change. It's a major step. And, you know, depending on how

the players are going to take it forwards.

In terms of the recognition of these two so-called People's Republics,

it's prompted in part by Putin's frustration that the various ideas about European Security Treaty,

which he put forwards on the 17th of December, then he got the US and NATO response,

and Russia a few days ago responded to them with a tone of disappointment, and that brought matters

to her head. But also another factor behind it is the fact that Russia has been sanctioned non-stop

since 2015 for its failure to implement the Minsk Accords.

And yet almost no pressure was put on Kiev to fulfill its part of trying to solve the Minsk

Accords. And the Minsk agreement was, we, people forget, was about how to return these two

so-called separatist or breakaway parts, to Ukrainian sovereignty. That was the point.

And so Russia was actually trying to push these people back into Ukraine, but they refused to, you know,

fulfilled a bit. The Normandy format was one way to achieve it, and that wasn't being fulfilled.

And a third and final, just plenty more,

but the biggest, one big issue is that we tend to forget

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