- Russian annexation of four condemned regions worldwide
- The move is a “dangerous escalation” that endangers peace, according to the UN chief
- Ukraine’s Zelenskiy says Putin must be stopped for war to end
- Zelenskiy calls an emergency meeting on security and defense
Sept 30 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin was due to host a ceremony on Friday for the annexation of four regions of Ukraine, while his Ukrainian counterpart said he would have to stop at Putin if Russia wanted to avoid the most damaging consequences of the war.
Russia’s expected annexation of the Russian-held areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia has been widely condemned in the West. UN chief Antonio Guterres said it was a “dangerous escalation” that would jeopardize prospects for peace.
“It can still be stopped. But to stop it we have to stop that person in Russia who wants war more than life. Your lives, citizens of Russia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a speech Thursday evening .
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The four regions cover about 90,000 square km, or about 15% of Ukraine’s total area, about the size of Hungary or Portugal.
Russian government officials have said the four regions will come under Moscow’s nuclear umbrella once they are formally incorporated into Russia. Putin has said he could use nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory if necessary.
Ukraine has said it will try to get its territory back.
“The referendums have no legal value, according to international law the regions are and remain Ukrainian territories and Ukraine is ready to do anything to get them back,” Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy, told Italy’s La Repubblica.
“They were sham votes, in which few people participated. Those who were going to vote were pointed at their faces with their rifles ordering: ‘Vote!'”
Zelenskiy vowed a strong response to the annexations and summoned his defense and security chiefs for an emergency meeting on Friday where “fundamental decisions” will be taken, an official said.
“WITHOUT LEGAL VALUE”
On the eve of the annexation ceremony in the Georgievsky Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace and a concert in Red Square, Putin said that “all mistakes” made in a call announced last week should be corrected, his first public recognition that he had done did not go well.
Thousands of men have fled Russia to avoid conscription that was presented as recruiting people with military experience and required specialties, but often appeared unrelated to service history, health, student status or even people’s age.
At Friday’s event, Putin will deliver a speech, meet the leaders of the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic and the Russian-backed Luhansk People’s Republic, as well as Russian-installed leaders of the parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia occupied by Russian forces.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not say whether Putin would attend the concert, as he held a similar event in 2014 after Russia proclaimed it had annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region.
A stage has been set up in Moscow Square with giant video screens and billboards proclaiming the four zones that make up Russia.
US President Joe Biden said the US would never recognize Russia’s claims to Ukrainian territory, and denounced the referendums.
“The results were fabricated in Moscow,” Biden told a conference of Pacific Island leaders on Thursday.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan pressed Putin in a call for action to reduce tensions in Ukraine.
UN Secretary-General Guterres told reporters: “Any decision to proceed with annexation… would have no legal value and deserves to be condemned.”
FIGHT
The United States and the European Union are poised to impose additional sanctions on Russia over the annexation, and even some of Russia’s close traditional allies, such as Serbia and Kazakhstan, say they will not recognize the takeover.
What Russia is billing as a celebration comes after it has faced the worst setbacks of the seven-month war, with its forces en route to Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region.
Heavy fighting continues in the four disputed regions.
Russian forces launched a rocket attack on a humanitarian convoy on the road out of Zaporizhzhia, killing and wounding them, said Oleksandar Starukh, the region’s governor.
Starukh said people were lining up to bring aid to relatives in Russian-controlled territory and pick up their relatives when the attack occurred. He did not specify the location.
Reuters could not verify reports from the battlefield.
Some military experts say Kyiv is on the verge of another major defeat, gradually encircling the city of Lyman, Russia’s main remaining stronghold in the northern part of Donetsk province. His capture would open the way to the Luhansk region.
In the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian military said it had killed 43 Russian soldiers and destroyed two Russian Su-25 jets, four tanks, four large-caliber shells, two self-propelled guns and a reconnaissance drone.
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Reuters bureau reports; written by Michael Perry; Editing by Robert Birsel
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