Putin repeats Hitler’s path: what is hidden behind the dictator’s statement about “Novorossiya”
6 December 19:17
ANALYSIS FROM 
Putin is talking about “Novorossiya” again, a concept that the Kremlin has been using to justify its aggression against Ukraine for more than a decade. This is a clear return to the plan for a lightning-fast takeover of Ukraine that the Kremlin tried to implement in 2014 and 2022, Vitaliy Portnikov notes. It was within this project that Russia planned to annex a significant part of the South and East of Ukraine, creating artificial “nations” and using pseudo-referendums. Why is the Russian dictator returning to the failed idea of the Blitzkrieg and how does this threaten Ukraine and Europe? How do the military assess the Kremlin’s future plans? And why do any negotiations on Russian terms pose a threat to Ukraine?
In a new interview on the eve of his visit to India, Russian President Vladimir Putin again mentioned the so-called “Novorossiya” and said that Russia “will liberate Donbass and Novorossiya in any case – by military or other means.” Political scientist and publicist Vitaliy Portnikov believes that this rhetoric indicates the Kremlin’s return to a great-power project that involves the seizure of much wider territories than the currently occupied parts of Donbas.
“It is significant that Putin is now talking not only about the Donetsk region. And it remains to be seen what kind of Novorossiya he is talking about when he emphasizes the need to “liberate” it,” Vitaliy Portnikov said.
The dictator may be referring either to the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions or to the “broader plan” that Putin and his entourage voiced back during the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Novorossiya project: imperial ambitions disguised as historical manipulations
Portnikov recalls that it was then that Putin first spoke of the so-called “Bolshevik gift to Ukraine” – a “gift” that, according to Kremlin logic, covers most of Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions.
“It was this territory that Moscow was talking about at the time as Novorossiya, which, as we now understand, should join the Russian Federation,” Portnikov notes.
An element of this plan was the idea of creating artificial “nations”: “We remember how the people of Donbas appeared in 2014, and later the people of Zaporizhzhia or Kherson regions,” Portnikov said. It was under these constructs that the Kremlin fabricated pseudo-referendums in the occupied territories, declaring them “independent states” that “join R=Russia.”
Blitzkrieg plan: what Putin really wanted in 2022
According to Portnikov, during the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Putin hoped that the “puppet government he would create in Kyiv” would agree to hold a series of referendums in eastern and southern Ukraine that would legitimize the annexation of large regions.
“And the part of Ukraine that will not be embraced by this referendum program will become a new Belarus,” Portnikov notes.
This is what he calls “the very Blitzkrieg plan.”
What does Putin want now?
Russia is acting logically in its own imperial paradigm and continues to consider new directions for aggressive expansion. This was stated by Defense Force officer Yevhen Tykhyi in a commentary
“If you look at it through the prism of the Russians’ vision and through the prism of the vision of this emperor, they act logically and rationally,” Tikhyi said.
In his opinion, one of the most profitable directions for Russia is an attempt to break through to Moldova.
“It is now very profitable for the Russians to make a land corridor to Moldova and from there continue their expansion anywhere. Either to the Balkans or further to Europe,” the military emphasized.
Yevhen Tykhyi predicts that the Baltic states may become the next major geopolitical interest of the Kremlin.
“From the north, I can venture to predict their further actions… This is the expansion of their influence in the Baltic States. And with their subsequent, not excluding, military seizure,” Tikhiy said.
The Russian Federation is categorically unhappy with the prospect that Ukraine will retain its borders and control over the southern direction despite the war.
“It is unprofitable for the Russians that this territory remains as it is, which gives us, for example, control of the Black Sea, Odesa, even without Crimea,” explains Tikhiy.
Control of Odesa and access to the Black Sea, he says, allows Ukraine to maintain a strategic role in the region and be a key partner of the West.
Tychy also draws a parallel between Ukraine’s potential role for the United States and Israel’s role in the Middle East.
“We can be the voice of America in the Eastern European region. And Russia categorically does not want to allow this to happen. Turkey, which could fulfill a similar function, is not an optimal partner for the United States because of Ankara’s internal politics. Erdogan is not very popular… this system of values in Turkey is not about the West, but about the East,” Tikhiy notes.
Why should we not agree to the Kremlin’s deals?
Portnikov is convinced that Putin is now returning to this model amid contacts with representatives of Donald Trump’s team, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
“The so-called Russian conditions in these negotiations do not mean anything real. According to him, the Kremlin is trying to use Trump to force Ukraine to agree to concessions in the Donetsk region,” Portnikov said.
Putin is putting forward conditions aimed primarily at destabilizing the political situation in our country.
He calls Russia’s acceptance of a part of Donetsk region only the first step, after which the Kremlin will immediately demand the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
“The Russians will immediately recall Novorossiya and demand… the withdrawal of troops from Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions,” Portnikov says.
Historical parallel: Hitler’s path, Putin’s way
Portnikov draws a direct analogy between Putin’s actions and Hitler’s policy on the eve of World War II.
“This is how Hitler acted. First, he demanded that Czechoslovakia hand over control of the Sudetenland to him… A few months later, he told the president of the diminished Czechoslovakia that he had to agree to turn the country into a protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia,” Portnikov summarizes.
According to Pornikov, concessions to the aggressor only accelerate the loss of sovereignty, and this is the Kremlin’s true goal.
