Putins Ukraine (2024)
Novorossiya, a tsarist era swath of Russian land that is now part of Ukraine, is an important component in Moscow’s foreign policy in relation to Ukraine. Novorossiya originally consisted of six oblasts—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaparizhzhia, Odessa, Kherson and Mykolaiv—that were annexed during the 18th century by Tsarina Catherine II. As part of post-Tsarist Soviet political reshuffling, those oblasts were gifted to Ukraine in 1922. Unforeseen at the time, Moscow’s gift to Kyiv would go on to provide the impetus, backstory and cover for contemporary Russian expansion into Ukraine. Indeed, Russian president Vladimir Putin and foreign minister Sergey Lavrov used the term Novorossiya to lend legitimacy to their bellicose foreign policy in Ukraine in 2014.