Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic (DPR)" and "Luhansk People's Republic (LPR)" of Ukraine's Donbas region as independent states on Monday following a televised meeting of the Russian Security Council. That gathering was held in response to the Duma's request last week for their leader to consider those two's independence. Earlier that same day, those region's self-proclaimed representatives appealed to Putin to do exactly that.

The highest representatives of the Russian federal apparatus spoke in support of this move during Monday's meeting, which appears to have convinced their president to comply with the Duma's request. The reasons shared were many and included everything from protecting Russian citizens in Donbas to breaking the deadlock that's pervaded for eight years since the first Minsk Accord of 2014 (after which a second one was also agreed to a year later).

Russia accuses Ukraine of not implementing its part of the deal while Kyiv blames Moscow for influencing the separatists to eschew fulfilling their commitments even though that neighboring country isn't acknowledged as a party to the conflict in those accords. Other Russian federal representatives claimed that Ukraine has no intention to ever respect its obligations, even going as far as to allege that it's fully under the U.S.'s influence, which orders it not to do so for self-interested reasons.

The latest escalation along the line of contact in Donbas over the past few days triggered a refugee exodus into Russia. It also seemingly galvanized public opinion in support of Putin's recognition of those breakaway polities, though average Russians were largely regarded as approving of that move anyhow for quite a while already. This development immensely complicates the political process since it essentially means that Russia no longer supports Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements (the Minsk II Agreement) in 2015.

From Moscow's perspective, however, that agreement was never truly implemented by Kyiv to begin with so it was only a matter of time before it was completely done away with by all stakeholders, including the breakaway Donbas polities and Russia itself. This literally changes the strategic calculus of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine and will certainly prompt a decisive U.S.-led Western reaction that'll most likely initially take the form of sanctions. More military support for Ukraine is also expected.

Uncertainties abound, however, especially over the extent to which Russia will militarily support the self-proclaimed polities that it just dramatically recognized. It's also unclear whether Moscow will help them establish full control over their eponymous regions that they claim in their entirety despite only controlling part of them at the moment. Direct Russian-Ukrainian clashes in Eastern Ukraine can't be ruled out either, particularly after Moscow earlier accused Kyiv of an unsuccessful sabotage mission.

That runs the risk of escalating into a larger conflict between these historically fraternal nations, one which might even turn into a Russia-NATO proxy war considering the U.S.-led West's existing military support for Kyiv through the emergency dispatch of many different types of armaments over the past eight years and especially in recent months. Since the Minsk II Agreement is no longer a practical mechanism for resolving the conflict, all stakeholders must urgently devise a new one.

The path to that outcome will likely be very difficult and perhaps even quite bloody since Kyiv is unlikely to peacefully accept Moscow's decision to change the legal-political status quo despite that it regards as illegal. In Russia's defense, though, it makes a compelling argument that it was Ukraine that changed the aforesaid status quo both by refusing to implement the Minsk II Agreement and allegedly initiating the latest hostilities in Donbas. Regardless of who's to blame, the conflict surely seems set to intensify.

Some observers worryingly interpreted this as implying that he might tacitly have other territorial claims over the land that Ukraine still regards as its own, thus suggesting that any escalation of the current conflict could lead to a radical revision of the regional political situation. At the same time, however, this might also have been a negotiating tactic to compel Kyiv to accept a peaceful solution instead of fighting what some might already consider to be a "hopeless war" against its neighboring military superpower.

What observers must remember is that all of this was ultimately provoked by the U.S.'s continual expansion of NATO that Russia officially regards as an existential threat, especially since it risks gradually eroding its nuclear second-strike capabilities through the regional deployment of "anti-missile systems" and strike weapons in parallel with the U.S.'s withdrawal from arms control agreements. Russia is arguably less interested in territory and more concerned about revising the European security architecture.

It remains to be seen whether the U.S. will finally agree to respect Russia's security guarantee requests from late December in light of the dramatically changed political circumstances in Ukraine – which also implies ordering its alleged proxies in Kyiv to stand down – or if it'll double down and continue aggressively resisting what it describes as Moscow's "revisionism." In the absence of the urgently needed sincere Russia-U.S. security talks, European security might very well enter its worst crisis since World War II.

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