Much of the international community has condemned Russia’s annexation of four provinces of Ukraine as illegal. Joe Biden accused Vladmir Putin of a “fraudulent attempt” to claim Ukrainian territory and said the move was “trampling on the United Nations charter, and showing its contempt for peaceful nations everywhere”. The UK’s human rights ambassador, Rita French, denounced Russia’s move in the UN’s human rights council as “an unprovoked and illegal land grab of sovereign Ukrainian territory”.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, described the west’s condemnation of its actions as a “temper tantrum”, adding that “any sovereign, self-respecting state that realises the responsibility it has to its own people would do the same”. But the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said the annexations – if allowed to stand – would “open a pandora’s box that we cannot close”. To get an idea of the stakes involved, it’s worth looking at the historical record.
Russia’s annexation of these territories is very unusual, at least since 1945. Almost never has a state conquered by force and then annexed a large populated territory like that in Ukraine. And the few times it has happened, the international community has almost always come together in not recognising the situation.
