Russia-held Ukraine areas to vote urgently on annexation
Vote to be held from Sept.23 -27; US, Germany and France denounce the ballots and say global community would never recognise the results while Nato says votes mark a ‘further escalation’ of war
Moscow-held regions of Ukraine will urgently vote on annexation by Russia, separatist officials said on Tuesday, as Kyiv’s troops wrest back territory captured by Moscow’s forces.
Separatist authorities in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, as well as in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, said they would hold the vote over five days beginning on Friday this week.
The regions are on the frontlines of a sweeping Ukrainian counter-offensive that has seen Kyiv’s forces retake hundreds of towns and villages that had been controlled by Russia for months.
Their integration into Russia would represent a major escalation of the conflict as Moscow could try to say it was defending its own territory from Ukrainian forces.
Washington, Berlin and Paris denounced the ballots and said the international community would never recognise the results while NATO said the votes marked a “further escalation” of the war.
Kyiv said the “sham” referendums were meaningless and vowed to “eliminate” threats posed by Russia, saying its forces would keep retaking territory regardless of what Moscow or its proxies announced.
Denis Miroshnichenko, a separatist leader in the Lugansk region, said pro-moscow lawmakers had voted to hold the vote from Sept.23 to 27.
Shortly aterwards, a news portal associated with separatist authorities in Donetsk said the region would hold a ballot over the same dates.
Large parts of the industrial Donbas area -made up of Donetsk and Lugansk -- have been controlled by Moscow-backed separatists since 2014, ater nationwide demonstrations ousted a Kremlin-friendly Ukrainian president.
Russia at the time annexed the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea from Ukraine with a vote that was criticised by Kyiv and the West, which imposed sanctions in response.
Ahead of the announcement by separatist and pro-moscow leaders, Russia’s lower house of parliament dr at ed new legislation tightening prison time for soldiers who surrender, desert or loot.
Authorities in the southern Kherson region of Ukraine also announced on Tuesday they would hold a vote over the same dates.
“The incorporation of the Kherson region into the Russian Federation will secure our territory and restore historical justice,” said the Moscowinstalled head of that region, Vladimir Saldo.
He echoed a phrase used earlier in the day by Russia’s former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev who invoked correcting historical wrongs, but also said the votes would bolster Russian forces.
“Encroachment into Russian territory is a crime and if it is commited, that allows you to use all possible force in self-defence,” Medvedev, now the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, said on social media.
Pro- moscow authorities in ukraine’ s zap orizhzh ia region -- home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant -- also announced they would hold a vote on the region’s “territorial allegiance”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, vowed a decisive response from Kyiv.
“Ukraine will solve the Russian issue. The threat can be eliminated only by force,” Yermak said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz denounced the “sham” votes and said they must be rejected by the international community. French President Emmanuel Macron called them a “travesty”.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the referendums were “an affront to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
“If this does transpire, the United States will never recognize Russia’s claims to any purportedly annexed parts of Ukraine,” he said.
Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the referendums would change nothing.
“Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say,” he said in a statement online.
At the United Nations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a “dignified way out” of the seven-month crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine’s forces in the east are now pushing towards the village of Bilogorivka whose capture by Russia in May decimated Moscow’s forces as they crossed the Siverskyi Donets river nearby.