After Ukraine and the West condemned the illegal referendum, which was held at gunpoint, Russia prepared to annex Ukraine territory within days, which it released a tally of votes in. There was overwhelming support in the four provinces for joining.
On Moscow’s Red Square, a stage is set up with giant video screens, with billboards reading “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Kherson – Russia!” Announcing
The head of Russia’s upper house of parliament said he could consider annexing the four partially occupied territories on Oct. 4, three days before President Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday.
The Russian-installed administrations of the four provinces have formally asked Putin to annex them into Russia, which Russian officials have suggested is a formality.
“It should happen within a week,” Rodion Miroshenko, Russia’s installed ambassador to Moscow in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, told the state-run RIA news agency.
“The real thing has already happened – the referendum has taken place. Therefore, we say: the locomotive has already started and is unlikely to stop.”
In order to annex the regions, which represent about 15 percent of Ukraine, any deal would need to be approved and ratified by the Russian parliament, which is controlled by Putin’s allies. These areas will then be seen as part of Russia and its nuclear umbrella will extend to them.
Putin has warned that he will use nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory from attack. Read more
‘No one voted’
In recent days, residents fleeing the occupied territories of Ukraine have reported that people are being forced to mark ballots in the streets by officers at gunpoint. Footage filmed during the exercise showed Russian mounted personnel carrying ballot boxes door-to-door with gunmen.
“They can announce whatever they want. No one voted in the referendum except for a few people who switched sides. They went door to door but no one came out,” said Goluprastan, a village in Russian-held Kherson. 43-year-old Lyubomer Boyko said. Province
Russia says voting was voluntary and turnout was high, according to international law. The idea of ​​a referendum and annexation has been universally rejected, as was Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought international support against annexation in a series of calls to foreign leaders, including Britain, Canada, Germany and Turkey.
“Thank you all for your explicit and implicit support. Thank you all for understanding our position,” Zielinski said in a late-night video address.
The United States has unveiled a $1.1 billion arms package for Ukraine that includes 18 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers, along with munitions, various counter-drone systems and radar systems. The announcement brings US security assistance to $16.2 billion.
The U.S. has also said it will impose new sanctions on Russia for the referendum, and the EU executive has proposed more sanctions, but implementing them is up to the bloc’s 27 member states over their differences. Must be controlled.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would need to continue fighting until it regained full control of Donetsk. About 40 percent is still under Ukrainian control.
Russia has announced it will mobilize around 300,000 reserves to bolster its forces in Ukraine. The recruitment drive has forced thousands of Russian men to flee to other countries.
On the ground, Ukrainian and Russian forces have been engaged in heavy fighting, particularly in the Donetsk region, where six civilians were killed in Russian strikes on Wednesday, the governor said.
Ukraine’s military said early Thursday that over the past 24 hours, Russia had launched three missile and eight airstrikes, launching more than 82 rocket salvo systems at military and civilian targets.
Ukraine’s air force carried out 16 strikes on Wednesday, damaging or destroying several Russian bases, while ground forces destroyed two command posts.
Valentyn Reznichenko Region Governor Valentin Reznichenko said Russian shelling of the region’s capital, Dnipro, killed three people, including a 12-year-old girl, and damaged more than 60 buildings.
“Rescuers took her out of the damaged house where she was sleeping when a Russian missile hit,” he said on his Telegram channel.
The battlefield reports could not be confirmed.
European Energy
Gas spewed into the Baltic Sea for a third day after suspected explosions ripped through undersea pipelines built by Russia and its European partners to send natural gas to Europe.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, once Germany’s main route for Russian gas, was already closed but cannot now be easily reopened.
NATO and the European Union warned of the need to protect critical infrastructure from “sabotage”, although officials stopped short of assigning blame.
Interfax news agency cited the general prosecutor’s office as saying that Russia’s FSB security service was investigating the damage to the pipelines as “international terrorism.”
The Nord Stream pipelines have been a flashpoint in the escalating energy war between Russia and European countries that has hurt Western economies and driven up gas prices.
