Russian President Vladimir Putin will consummate this Friday with the signing of treaties the annexation of four Ukrainian territories occupied in the east and south of the neighboring country.
“The ceremony for the signing of the agreements for the entry of the new territories into Russia will take place tomorrow” at 12:00 GMT in the St. George room of the Grand Kremlin Palace, the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, said on Thursday. .
The signing of the treaties will take place together with the leaders of Donetsk, Denís Pushilin; from Lugansk, Leonid Passechnik; from Kherson, Volodímir Saldo, and from Zaporizhia, Yevguei Balitski, and with parliamentarians as witnesses.
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These are the keys to understanding the referendums and the annexation of the four zones.
Why were referendums held?
The authorities installed by Moscow in various regions of Ukraine announced last Tuesday, September 20, the urgent holding, between September 23 and 27, of referendums on annexation to Russia.
The referendums were announced after a Ukrainian counteroffensive that allowed kyiv to recapture the bulk of the Kharkov region in northeastern Ukraine.
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What areas voted the referendums?
Referendums were held in Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson.
Lugansk and Donetsk are two predominantly Russian-speaking regions that make up Donbas, the industrial basin of Ukraine. Between 2014 and 2022, a conflict in that region pitted separatists loyal to Moscow against Ukrainian forces.
But in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of the separatists and justified the invasion of Ukraine by the need to save Russian-speaking populations from alleged genocide.
The Luhansk region had a pre-war population of 2.1 million. It borders Russia on three sides and, according to kyiv, about 98% of its territory is under Moscow’s control since the Russian offensive.
Of the four regions where referendums are held, Luhansk is the one Russia controls the most, but it did so at the cost of heavy military losses.
The neighboring region of Donetsk, for its part, had 4.1 million inhabitants before the war and its capital of the same name is the third largest city in the country.
Before the Russian invasion, about half of the region was under separatist control. Currently, about 67% of its territory is in the hands of Moscow and its allies, especially the port of Mariupol, destroyed by the siege and bombardment by Russian forces.
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And what about Zaporizhia and Kherson?
Zaporizhia borders the Black Sea and is home to the country’s largest nuclear power plant, on the Dnipro River, and had a population of 1.63 million before the war.
Of the four regions that held referendums, this is the one with the least Russian control, with 63% of its area occupied by Moscow and its military administration. Its largest city, also called Zaporizhia, is in Ukrainian hands, but its main port of Berdyansk is under Russian control.
The giant nuclear power plant in the area was seized by the Russian army in March. Since then, the two sides have accused each other of bombing the area, with the risk of a nuclear accident.
Regarding Kherson, about 83% of this region, the westernmost under Moscow’s control, and its capital of the same name, were taken by Russia in the first days of the war.
The region of great agricultural importance is strategic for Moscow because it borders the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.
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What was the result of the referendum?
According to the results released this Wednesday by the pro-Russian authorities with one hundred percent of the ballots counted, between 87.05 and 99.23% of voters in referendums in the territories controlled by Russian forces in eastern and southern Ukraine supported annexation to Russia.
The greatest support for annexation was recorded in Donetsk, where 99.23% of voters would have supported joining Russia.
The figure was slightly lower in Lugansk, where 98.42% reportedly voted in favor of this option.
In the territories controlled by Russia in the southern Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhia and Kherson, 93.11 and 87.05% of citizens, respectively, would have voted in favor of entering Russia.
What does annexation represent for Russia?
And it is that the referendums represent a turning point in the war after the successful counteroffensive launched by Ukraine in recent weeks that pushed Putin to declare a partial mobilization of reservists.
Together, the four regions constitute an important land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014 in a process similar to the current one.
Counting this peninsula, Russia would control about 20% of all of Ukraine or about 100,000 square kilometers, a size similar to that of countries like Hungary and Portugal.
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Several Russian officials and commentators have stated that once these areas have been annexed and considered by Moscow as part of its territory, Russia will be able to use the nuclear weapon to “defend” them.
Putin, in fact, declared last week that Russia was ready to resort to “all means” in its arsenal to “defend” its territory.
What has been the international reaction?
As in 2014, when the US and the European Union reacted with sanctions to the annexation of Crimea, in this 2022 the European Union and the US will also hit Russia with new restrictive measures for the illegal consultations in the east and southern Ukraine.
Practically the entire international community has condemned the pseudo-referendums and has assured that it will not recognize the annexation.
If someone in Russia expects the world to abandon its own values, frightened by another Russian announcement of annexation, that someone in Russia is wrong.
Putin’s step will not even be supported by the Kremlin’s traditional partners, such as China, India, Turkey or Serbia.
Ukraine’s President Volodimir Zelensky, for his part, said in his late-night speech the day before that “if someone in Russia thinks that they can get away with everything they are doing in the occupied territory, if someone in Russia expects that If the world abandons its own values, scared by another Russian announcement of annexation, that somebody in Russia is wrong.”
“Each step of escalation by the occupier only confirms the fact that the world must act even harder,” he stressed. Zelensky has already called a meeting of the Security and Defense Council for this Friday.
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So what is the process for annexation?
In principle, before being able to annex the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, Putin must formally recognize their independence, as he did on February 21 with the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, three days before the invasion of Ukraine.
After the signing of the treaties by Putin, the lower house and the Senate must approve them, a step that is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. Then Putin will have to enact the union of the four Ukrainian territories with Russia.
What will the annexation ceremony be like?
According to the Kremlin, Putin will deliver “a far-reaching speech” at this Friday’s event.
In addition, the room in which Putin will sign the documents is symbolic, not only because it is the place of the great acts in the Kremlin, but also because the Russian president already signed the treaty for annexation to Russia there on March 18, 2014 from the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and from the city of Sevastopol.
Then the Crimeans held an annexation referendum considered illegal by the international community and Ukraine, which had the support of 96.77% of voters. More than eight years later, history repeats itself.
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After Friday’s act in the Kremlin, whose countdown is already being reported by the state media, a major concert will be held in Red Square in support of the
annexation. Slogans such as “Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, Russia!”
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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