Moscow prepares to annex eastern regions
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan to illegally annex four partiallyoccupied regions in eastern Ukraine has lurched forward, with Russian officials and Kremlin proxy leaders claiming that staged referendums showed residents in favour of joining Russia by absurd margins of more than 97%.
Defying international condemnation and threats of additional Western economic sanctions, Putin could declare Russia’s absorption of the four regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – as soon as tomorrow, the British Defence Ministry said. Moscow does not fully control any of the regions, either militarily or politically.
Putin has signalled that upon annexation, he would consider any attack on Russian forces in those territories an attack on Russia itself. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev yesterday reiterated recent threats that Russia could use a nuclear weapon.
The referendums in many cases were carried out at gunpoint, with residents visited in their homes and forced to answer a single question about joining Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the votes will not change his military’s defence of Ukrainian sovereign territory, and he has pledged to recapture all occupied areas.
With fears in Russia that Putin’s annexation announcement could be accompanied by a declaration of martial law, the exodus of fighting-age men trying to flee military mobilisation appears to be reaching critical levels. There were traffic jams and huge queues at border crossings yesterday.
Georgia said about 10,000 Russians were arriving in the country every day, almost double the number compared to September 21, when the mobilisation was announced. Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry estimated that 98,000 people had arrived there.
Meanwhile, Putin has been accused of sabotage after a series of underwater explosions yesterday caused ‘‘unprecedented’’ damage to Baltic Sea pipelines built to supply Europe with gas. Ships and aircraft are being warned to stay away from an 8km exclusion zone around the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.
‘‘We don’t know all the details of what happened, but we see clearly that it’s an act of sabotage, related to the next step of escalation of the situation in Ukraine,’’ said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
Other European governments, including Germany, Denmark and Norway, believe the leaks were caused by sabotage rather than by accident. Sweden’s National Seismic Network said the largest explosion was equivalent to more than 100kg of dynamite.
Nord Stream AG, the operator of the network, said damage to the pipelines was ‘‘unprecedented’’ and it was not possible to work out a time frame for repairs.
European gas prices rose by as much as 20 per cent yesterday, amid an escalating energy war in which Putin is banking on the West folding first.
Investigations are under way in Germany, Denmark and Sweden after the leaks near the Danish island of Bornholm, close to both pipelines and near where a Russian warship twice violated territorial waters in June.
Flows from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline were halted in August, ostensibly for maintenance, and have not restarted – something Moscow blames on faulty equipment and sanctions.