Putin to annex four more areas of Ukraine following sham referendums

29 September 2022, 13:53

Russia's Vladimir Putin will hold a signing ceremony in Moscow on Friday to formally annex four more areas of Ukraine, after sham referendums were held without independent monitoring.

So-called votes were held in Luhansk and Donetsk in the east, and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south, with reports of election officials going from door to door escorted by soldiers.

A big stage has been set up in Moscow's Red Square, with billboards proclaiming the four regions as part of Russia. Mr Putin is expected to give a speech following the signing in a spectacle echoing what happened following Russia's illegal annexation of Ukraine.

The total area set to be annexed amounts to around 15% of Ukraine and includes around four million people. Once annexed, Russia has said that it will consider attacks on the Russian-controlled areas as a direct attack on Russia, and threatened to respond with nuclear weapons if Russia's national security was threatened.

Residents who escaped to Ukranian-held areas in recent days have told of people being forced to mark ballots in the street at gunpoint.

Russian state TV announced results for the so-called referendums, which claimed to show overwhelming support for joining Russia.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed that Ukraine will "defend" its citizens in Russian-occupied regions.

“This farce in the occupied territory cannot even be called an imitation of referendums,” Zelenskyy said on Tuesday in a video posted on Telegram.

“We will act to protect our people: both in the Kherson region, in the Zaporizhzhia region, in the Donbas, in the currently occupied areas of the Kharkiv region, and in the Crimea.”

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The news comes as Finland announces it will ban Russian tourists, after the Kremlin's decision to draft 300,000 reservists from the Russian population led to a flood of Russians trying to leave the country.

The move is expected to reduce cross-border traffic, though entry for family visits, and for work and studies will still be permitted.

Seven months after Russian forces invaded Ukraine from the north, east and south, war is still raging on front lines in all four areas. The capital of the southern region of Zaporizhzhia is firmly under the control of Ukraine's government, and a counter-offensive is under way in Kherson.