Recognition of breakaway ukraine regions: Putin tests West’s unity

Russia faced a furious global diplomatic and economic backlash yesterday after President Vladimir Putin ordered his "peacekeeping" forces into Ukraine to secure two breakaway regions, but division among European allies raised questions how far West can go against Moscow.

Germany announced that it was halting certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia and said the European Union would adopt "robust and massive" economic sanctions.

The $11bn pipeline owned by Russia's state-backed energy giant Gazprom has been built to carry gas from western Siberia to Germany, doubling the existing capacity of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and keeping 26m German homes warm at an affordable price. Nord Stream 2 bypasses the traditional gas transit nation of Ukraine by running along the bed of the Baltic Sea.

Putin's move was quickly and widely condemned by Kyiv's allies in the West.

But in some capitals there was debate over whether sending troops into an area that was already controlled by Russian-backed rebels amounts to the kind of all-out invasion that would justify imposing the harshest sanctions.

Western officials were not yet describing Putin's moves as an invasion, but US officials say there is at least a 150,000-strong Russian force poised to launch an all-out assault.

In Moscow, the lower house of the Russian parliament, the Duma, voted to approve Putin's friendship deals with the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) and Lugansk People's Republic (LNR).

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would decide soon whether to cut diplomatic ties with Moscow.

Despite the decision in Berlin to suspend certification of Nord Stream 2, Germany, France and Italy have been accused by more hawkish EU member states of "fetishising incremental" moves when it comes to a broader economic sanctions package.

According to one diplomat, Austria, Germany and Italy stressed the importance of gradually escalating the sanctions imposed for fear of losing leverage. Any sanctions package requires unanimity, reported The Guardian.

Comments by political leaders from London and Brussels were also markedly different despite attempts over the previous months to coordinate an approach in the face of Russian aggression.

Josep Borrell, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, claimed that the movement of Russian military force into separatist territories in southeast Ukraine did not yet count as a "fully-fledged invasion", while UK cabinet minister Sajid Javid said "invasion of Ukraine has begun".

Britain meanwhile slapped sanctions on five Russian banks and three men.

The United States took its first measures in the early hours of yesterday, banning US persons from any financial dealings with the breakaway territories, and said more sanctions would be announced later.