MOSCOW | Russian President Vladimir Putin will formalize Friday in Moscow the annexation by Russia of Ukrainian territories, widely denounced by the international community but which he threatened to defend even with nuclear weapons.
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Kyiv, supported by the West and its arms deliveries, has sworn to continue its counter-offensive which has been pushing the Russian army back for almost a month, forcing Mr. Putin to hastily mobilize hundreds of thousands of civilian reservists .
The Kremlin will therefore host a ceremony on Friday during which the annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk (east) and Kherson and Zaporizhia (south) will be formalized.
“A ceremony for signing agreements on the entry of new territories into the Russian Federation will be held tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. (12:00 GMT) in the Kremlin,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“Vladimir Putin will deliver a voluminous speech at this event,” he added.
The Russian capital was preparing for festivities to mark the annexation of the four Ukrainian regions, which comes following “referendums” condemned by most of the international community.
Motor traffic will thus be prohibited in a large part of the city center on Friday, while a concert will be organized, according to Russian media, in the shadow of the Kremlin walls. Mr. Putin might make an appearance there.
Officials installed by Moscow in the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, in the south, have already arrived by plane in Moscow on Wednesday evening, according to Russian news agencies.
“Meaningful Fights”
Faced with a massive Ukrainian counter-offensive, Russia hastened the annexation process with the hasty organization of so-called “referendums” under the supervision of armed soldiers. These votes have been called a “masquerade” and a “sham” by Kyiv and its Western backers.
Even China, Moscow’s closest partner, has been critical of a violation of the territorial integrity of a sovereign state.
Russia is following the scenario of the annexation in 2014 of Crimea, a peninsula in southern Ukraine: Mr. Putin then also delivered a speech with great pomp under the golds of the Kremlin.
Ukraine has denounced these annexations and swept away Mr. Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons, pursuing a counter-offensive in the East and South.
After having reconquered most of the North-East, Ukraine seems launched in the recovery of Lyman, a city in the Donetsk region and an important railway hub that the Russian army has controlled since May.
Ukrainian forces remain silent on ongoing operations, but authorities loyal to Moscow in the region have acknowledged tough fighting.
“The adversary is making regular attempts to attack to create the conditions for an encirclement,” senior Donetsk official Alexei Nikonorov told Russian television.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American research centre, noted that “significant fighting” was taking place in the area, and that if Ukraine recaptured Lyman it would allow him to advance to the both in the regions of Donetsk and the neighboring region of Lugansk.
On the ground, Russian bombardments continued to hit Ukrainian cities, killing a child in particular in the night in Dnipro. At least five civilians were also killed in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Donetsk region.
“Always better than killing”
In Russia, the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of civilian reservists to reinforce the Russian lines continued, as did the exodus of tens of thousands of Russians fearing being mobilized.
A young man in his twenties, who arrived in Mongolia via the land border, prefers to remain anonymous to explain the reasons which led him to flee Russia.
“It was very difficult to leave everything behind me. My home, my country, my loved ones. But it’s always better than killing people,” he told AFP in Ulaanbaatar, the capital.
On the international front of the conflict, it was leaks due to mysterious explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines that fueled new Russian-Western tensions.
Indeed, the two camps are now accusing each other half-heartedly of having sabotaged the underwater tubes, a crucial infrastructure for the European supply of Russian gas. These were, however, at a standstill because of the Russian assault on its neighbour.
NATO on Thursday denounced “deliberate, reckless and irresponsible” acts of sabotage, while the Kremlin said it suspected the “involvement of a foreign state”, while Russian diplomacy had pointed an accusing finger the day before. the United States.
A meeting of the UN Security Council is scheduled for Friday on the subject, at the request of Moscow.
