Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to host a Kremlin ceremony on Friday annexing four regions of Ukraine, while his Ukrainian counterpart said Putin would have to be stopped for Russia to avoid the most damaging consequences of the war.
There was a warning too from United Nations chief Antonio Guterres who said the planned annexations were a “dangerous escalation” and jeopardise prospects for peace.
A view shows banners and constructions erected ahead of an expected event, dedicated to the results of referendums on the joining of four Ukrainian self-proclaimed regions to Russia, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia, on 29th September. Banners read: “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson – Russia!” and “We are together”. PICTURE: Reuters/Evgenia Novozhenina
Putin has doubled down on the invasion he ordered in February despite suffering a major reversal on the battlefield this month and discontent in Russia over a widely criticised “partial mobilisation” of thousands more men to fight in Ukraine.
“The cost of one person in Russia wanting to continue this war is that Russian society will be left without a normal economy, a worthwhile life, or any respect for humanitarian values,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a Thursday evening address.
“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,” said Zelenskiy, who earlier spoke of Ukraine delivering a “very harsh” reaction to Russian recognition of so-called referendum results.
Moscow plans annexation of eastern and southern provinces after what Ukraine and Western countries said were sham votes staged at gunpoint in Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The territory Russia controls amounts to more than 90,000 square kilometres, or about 15 per cent of Ukraine’s total area – equal to the size of Hungary or Portugal.
On the eve of the planned ceremony in the Georgievsky Hall of the Great Kremlin Palace and a concert in Red Square, Putin said that “all mistakes” made in a call-up announced last week should be corrected, his first public acknowledgment that it had not gone smoothly.
Thousands of men have fled Russia to avoid a draft that was billed as enlisting those with military experience and required specialities but has often appeared oblivious to individuals’ service record, health, student status or even age.
Ceremony
Russia says the referendums, ostensibly asking people in the four regions whether they wanted to be part of Russia, were genuine and showed public support.
At Friday’s event Putin will give a speech, meet leaders of the self-styled Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic as well as the Russian-installed leaders of the parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia that Russian forces occupy.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not say whether Putin would attend the Red Square concert, as he did a similar event in 2014 after Russia proclaimed it had annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region.
A stage has been set up on the Moscow square with giant video screens and billboards proclaiming the four areas part of Russia.
“Any decision to proceed with the annexation…would have no legal value and deserves to be condemned,” United Nations Secretary General Guterres told reporters.
A view shows a screen, set up ahead of an expected ceremony and concert to declare four Ukraine’s self-proclaimed regions part of Russia following recent referendums, near St Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower in central Moscow, Russia, on 29th September. A slogan on the screen reads: “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson – Russia!”. PICTURE: Reuters/Evgenia Novozhenina
US President Joe Biden said the United States would never recognise Russia’s claims on Ukraine’s territory, denouncing the referendums. “The results were manufactured in Moscow,” Biden said at a conference of Pacific Island leaders on Thursday.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan pressed Putin in a call to take steps to reduce tensions in Ukraine.
Nuclear umbrella
Russian government officials have said that the four regions will fall under Moscow’s nuclear umbrella once they have been formally incorporated into Russia. Putin has said he could use nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory if necessary.
Washington and the European Union are set to impose additional sanctions on Russia over the annexation plan, and even some of Russia’s close traditional allies, such as Serbia and Kazakhstan, say they will not recognise the move.
What Russia is billing as a celebration comes after Moscow has faced its worst setbacks of the seven-month-old war, with its forces routed in recent weeks in Ukraine’s northeast.
Some military experts say Kyiv is poised to deliver another major defeat, gradually encircling the town of Lyman, Russia’s main remaining bastion in the northern part of Donetsk province.
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Ukraine has so far held back from disclosing details of the situation in Lyman. Russia’s Defence Ministry said a day earlier that a Ukrainian offensive on Lyman had failed, with 70 Ukrainian soldiers killed.
Meanwhile, the cause of damage to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines under the Baltic Sea, built to carry Russian gas to Europe though already shut, has not yet been solved. Sweden’s coast guard said it found a fourth leak.
Western countries said the pipelines were sabotaged while stopping short of openly ascribing blame. Russia, which has denied involvement, said it looked like acts of state-sponsored terrorism and that the United States stood to gain. Washington has denied any involvement.
Firefighters and Ukrainian army soldiers search for bodies of people killed during a Russian attack, among the remains of a building beside a TV tower, in the recently liberated town of Izium, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on 28th September. PICTURE: Reuters/Zohra Bensemra
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also urged minority groups across Russia to resist the Kremlin’s mobilisation effort, telling them they need not die in a “shameful war”.
Zelenskiy made the remarks in a video appeal on the eve of a Kremlin ceremony to mark the annexation of four Ukrainian regions occupied by Russian forces.
Non-Russian groups – mainly from the Caucasus in the south of Russia and from Siberia – are over-represented in military contingents sent to Ukraine and violent protests against the mass mobilisation have erupted in some areas gripped by poverty.
“You don’t have to die in Ukraine. Your sons don’t have to die in Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said, standing next to a monument in Kyiv to an imam from the Caucasus.
He said Russia had been isolated by a war sought solely by President Vladimir Putin who “will not stop” at the first wave of mobilisation.
“There will be more. He will try to take even more lives…no-one is obliged to take part in a shameful war.”
According to publicly available data on military casualties compiled by Russian investigative outlet iStories, soldiers from Buryatia, on the border with Mongolia, and Dagestan, a mainly Muslim area on the Caspian Sea, have suffered the highest casualty rate in the conflict.
More than 100 people were detained in protests in Dagestan against the draft last week.
– With RONALD POPESKI and Reuters bureaux.
