Russia will struggle to govern the four Ukrainian provinces annexed by Putin, according to a Washington think tank.
Russian authorities will “struggle to establish governance structures” over four annexed Ukrainian provinces due to “bureaucratic incompetence,” according to the Washington D.C. based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Vladimir Putin signed “accession treaties” merging Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson into the Russian Federation on Friday. This followed referendums in the four regions, which were dismissed as “rigged” and a “sham” by Western powers.
The move sparked a furious response from the world’s leading democracies, with the G7 group of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K and the U.S. issuing a joint statement saying they would “never recognize” the annexation, which they branded “a new low point in Russia’s blatant flouting of international law.” After the announcement fresh sanctions were imposed on Russia by the U.
