There Russia celebrates the annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk. A year later, Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed “Reunification Day” to celebrate the choice made by their inhabitants – defined at the time by Volodymyr Zelensky as “another Moscow farce” – to “return to their homeland”.
“One year ago, on September 30, a truly historic event took place: agreements were signed for the access of four new entities to the Russian Federation,” the Russian president said in a video message released today by the Kremlin, after yesterday in Red Square there was a concert to celebrate the anniversary, under the slogan “One country, one family, one Russia”.
Putin’s message
In his message, Putin promised Russia’s “brotherly help” in rebuilding war-torn areas : “Schools, hospitals, residential buildings and streets, museums and monuments” will be rebuilt, assures the Russian president. “Before us there is a great undertaking and the solution of difficult challenges, the implementation of a great program of reconstruction and socio-economic development of our historical regions – continued Putin – and we will definitively achieve the objectives we have set ourselves” .
“We are a single people and together we will overcome anything and find the answers to every challenge”, Putin said again, thanking the inhabitants of the annexed regions who “together took this conscious, long-awaited, hard-fought and truly popular decision during the referendums , in full compliance with international standards. They showed courage and inflexible character.”
Annexation with a referendum
The annexation referendumscalled at the end of September last year by the pro-Russian leaders of the occupied regions, they were considered a farce by the entire international community with voters voting practically under the gunpoint of the occupiers.
Putin then, in violation of international law, on 30 September Putin signed with these leaders the agreements to enter the Russian Federation – later ratified by the Duma, the Federal Council – for the regions, a territory of 100 thousand square km, equal to a fifth of the entire Ukraine, which was the largest forced annexation in Europe since 1945. At that signing, Putin declared that the millions of citizens of those annexed regions would be Russian citizens “forever.”
Fighting rages in the regions
In reality, Russia did not entirely control all the territory it declared annexed at the time, ed in these 12 months Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia have been the scene of the fiercest fighting, with the Ukrainians retaking swathes of territory in their counteroffensive. A counteroffensive which, Zelensky promises, will continue until the liberation of all the annexed territories, including Crimea, annexed in 2014.
Another danger now looms for the inhabitants of the annexed regions, that of forced conscription into the Russian army to fight against Ukraine. In the decree approved yesterday by Putin for another 130 thousand recruits, for the first time the inhabitants of the four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia a year ago are also included.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom yesterday announced new sanctions against Russia, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the annexation and to punish it for having also conducted local elections in the annexed regions at the beginning of the month: “Russia’s farce elections are a transparent, futile attempt to legitimize his illegal control of sovereign Ukrainian territory – said the Foreign Minister, James Cleverly – elections cannot be held on the territory of another country”.
Medvedev: “Russia conquers other regions, we will win”
“The special military operation” in Ukraine “will continue until the Nazi regime in Kiev has been completely destroyed and the original territories of Russia have been liberated from the enemy. Victory will be ours. And there will be other new regions inside of Russia”, wrote Dmitry Medvedev, deputy of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, on Telegram on the “day of the reunification of the new regions with Russia”.
Medvedev hints that Moscow could annex other Ukrainian territories, while the conflict in Ukraine and the counteroffensive of Kiev’s forces continue. The “day of reunification” was proclaimed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin one year after the annexation of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk. By “new regions” Russia refers to these four regions.
Kiev’s replies
“Remember: there are no ‘new territories of Russia’ or ‘annexed territories’ and there is no possibility that Russia will be able to maintain control of them,” Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak replies on Telegram. “There is only the territory of Ukraine, including Crimea, where heavy battles are being fought to destroy the Russian occupation group and the ambitions of the Russian authoritarian state.”
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