An event that looks like one more in a long series of aggravating moves in our chaotic world has the same detonating flavour as the ones that can cause world wars. It might be that nothing more catastrophic than what we are getting used to will happen, but if it would take greater proportions, of the type that will be life-changing for everybody, I'd wish to record my feelings on the night that it happened.
Russia's recognizing, and in its wake, "entering" Donbass, strongly reminds of Germany's protectorate of the Sudetenland at the expense of Czechoslovakia and for the benefit of the German population living there. Reactions from the locals indeed seem to be more than welcoming of the Russian's protection. This, besides, follows the more "natural" looking annexation of Crimea, earlier, just as the Anschluss had been more widely regarded as acceptable at the time. Shortly afterwards, when turning to Poland, this started the 2nd world war, from which we still suffer to this day, among other things, for the rise of the Anglo-Saxon rule (not to write empire). Who knows what is in store for us tomorrow?
It still really feels like we are caught in the same ineluctable chain of events, an escalation with no alternatives and that will eventually tip over. Putin's move was justified from his own mouth in a very long and detailed speech, which climaxed with his immediate recognition of new frontiers for Ukraine:
There are justifications, but just as Hitler also had justifications. In particular, Ukraine's disrespect of the Minsk agreements, and the hatred between the Russian locals and the central Ukrainian government, was making any hope of the situation regularizing itself a lost cause. This resembles, too, Hitler's speech on the Versailles treaty and the humiliations of Germany by the old winners. NATO has been playing a very obvious, nasty and dangerous game of extension there, provoking Moscow and basically forcing it to take action of this kind. On legal and moral grounds, especially in the light of precedents such as Kosovo, Moscow has, therefore, more than some incentive, some justifications. On moral grounds, those which are seldom at stakes of politicians, this was maybe a necessary humanitarian action.
But History, at least the one that makes it to the textbooks, retains simple facts: Russia initiates the invasion. Would the situation deteriorates, would a war gets out of hands, Russia will be blamed for instigating it, regardless of its motivations to do so. Maybe Putin had no choice. Maybe he can't wait for NATO to take hold of Ukraine and has to make his move first. Strategically and military speaking, maybe this is his best if not only option. But historically and politically speaking, this looks like a blunder.
My feeling, as events unravel under still global reservations and diplomatic rebuttals only, is that the situation will deteriorate beyond mere sanctions and that even if from this point onward, this is all fueled by the other side, it will be difficult to side with the one that made the most disruptive move, namely, officially driving one's army in a territory deprived of its former identity and frontiers. It seems that the occident is in dire need of a major crisis elsewhere than on its grounds and with its own population (see Canada, for instance, as the latest "democracy" now turned full-Fascist mode). For this reason, the occident's interest is to further escalate, rather than to compromise. I suspect Ukraine will now join NATO, under the explicit excuse of Russian moving across its borders. It would have been rightly decried before and could even have been seen as a casus belli. While now, Ukraine can even claim it has a justification. What a pity to see Putin in effect invades the country, as has been warned against by the west all this time. It is therefore my feeling that Putin made a mistake, one which will allow those who are most interested in chaos, to blame it on him. How the events unravel in the near future will give us a clearer grid of lectures. This is, however, my reaction on the time it happened. One mixed with anxiety and disappointment.