In the short term, Vladimir Putin’s next objective is first to “digest” this territorial conquest. Clearly, we must expect a policy of accelerated Russification in the four occupied provinces. The master of the Kremlin will resume the same scenario already played out in Crimea in 2014.
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He will impose the Russian language in schools and rewrite history textbooks. The ruble, the Russian national currency, will be introduced in these regions. The telephone system will be integrated with that of Russia. Residents will receive Russian passports.
In short, everything will be done by the Kremlin to weave the most administrative, political, economic, energy and military links. A forced march of integration in the form of “bunkerization” to prevent the Ukrainians from taking over these four provinces.
Russia now controls the entire Sea of Azov and in particular the strategic port of Mariupol. Putin’s army is also present as far as Kherson on the Dnieper River. But obviously, one can imagine that the master of the Kremlin also has designs on the rest of the Black Sea coast and in particular on Odessa. This city, founded by Catherine II, has a strong historical charge for Russians. This is where Eisenstein’s famous film was shot. Battleship Potemkin in 1925. During the Soviet period, Odessa was a naval base for the Moscow Navy.
But above all, the city has long been a popular seaside resort for Russian tourists attracted by its beaches and the mildness of its climate. So much for the symbolism in the Russian collective consciousness, but there is also an obvious strategic interest for Vladimir Putin, that of establishing territorial continuity with Transnistria, a pro-Russian region of Moldova.
For the moment, we are still very far from it. The Russian army has been on the defensive in recent weeks. And obviously, Ukraine does not want to see its access to the sea cut off and will do everything to recover these lost provinces, as shown by the counter-offensive of its army in the northeast of Donbass.