ISW: Annexation of DNR and LNR will put Russia in conflicting situation

Urgent discussion on September 19 among Russia's proxies of the need for Russia to immediately annex Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (much of the latter of which is not under Russian control) suggests that Ukraine's ongoing northern counter-offensive is panicking proxy forces, and some Kremlin decision-makers, Report informs, citing US-based Institute for the Study of War.

The legislatures of Russia's proxies in occupied Ukraine, the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DNR and LNR), each called on their leadership to "immediately" hold a referendum on recognizing the DNR and LNR as Russian subjects.

Russian propagandist and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan spoke glowingly of the call, referring to it as the "Crimean scenario." She wrote that by recognizing occupied Ukrainian land as Russian territory, Russia could more easily threaten NATO with retaliatory strikes for Ukrainian counterattacks, "untying Russia's hands in all respects."

According to ISW, this approach is incoherent. Russian forces do not control all of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Annexing the claimed territories of the DNR and LNR would, therefore, have Russia annex oblasts that would be by Kremlin definition partially "occupied" by legitimate Ukrainian authorities and advancing Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian strikes into Russian-annexed Crimea clearly demonstrate that Ukrainian attacks on Russia's illegally annexed territory do not automatically trigger Russian retaliation against NATO, as Simonyan would have her readers believe.

Partial annexation at this stage would also place the Kremlin in the strange position of demanding that Ukrainian forces unoccupy "Russian" territory and the humiliating position of being unable to enforce that demand.

It remains very unclear that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be willing to place himself in such a bind for the dubious benefit of making it easier to threaten NATO or Ukraine with escalation he remains highly unlikely to conduct at this stage.

The Kremlin may believe that partial annexation could drive the recruitment of additional forces, both from within Russia and from within newly annexed Ukrainian territory. Russian forces are desperately attempting to mobilize additional forces from all potential sources to backfill their heavily degraded and demoralized units but have proven unable to generate significant combat power, as ISW has repeatedly written.

This latest annexation discussion also omits other parts of Russian-occupied southern Ukraine in which the Kremlin was previously planning sham annexation referenda.

A willingness to abandon the promise to bring all the occupied areas into Russia at the same time would be a significant retreat for Putin to make in the eyes of the hardline pro-war groups he appears to be courting.

The Kremlin's proxies in Donbas regularly outpace Kremlin messaging, on the other hand, and may have done so again as they scramble to retain their occupied territory in the face of Ukraine's successful and ongoing counter-offensive.