Russia’s legislature on Monday began the process of approving President Vladimir Putin’s decision to annex four parts of Ukraine, despite the fact that the Kremlin is not in full control of these regions and has not set the exact boundaries of the territories it is trying to absorb.
Legislative approval of the annexation, which is illegal under international law, should be a formality, although it will take a few days.
Putin and his allies effectively control both branches of the Russian legislature, and the space for political dissent in Russia has shrunk in recent years. But the maneuvers inside the Kremlin’s ornate halls are in stark contrast to events on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine.
Russian forces suffered a series of surprising defeats in eastern Ukraine, forcing them to retreat and abandon several positions in areas the Kremlin claims to annex. Much of the territory Moscow claims as its own in the Donetsk region is under the control of Ukrainian forces, and the Kremlin appears unsure of the exact boundaries of the regions it plans to annex.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow needs to “continue to consult” with local populations before establishing its borders.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that the country had retaken Lyman, while the Ukrainian military said it had recaptured the nearby villages of Drobysheve and Torske, putting Kiev in a better position to retake the Luhansk region.
Pro-Russian officials said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had invaded the Luhansk region, mostly under Russian control or Russian-aligned forces. They liberated the village of Bilohorivka in Luhansk at the end of September and have now gained a foothold in the direction of Lysychansk.
Lysychansk was the last Ukrainian stronghold in Luhansk before Kyiv withdrew its troops in July.
In a third region, Kherson, Ukrainian forces are advancing and have captured several villages and settlements, including Zolota Balka, on the west bank of the Dnipro River, according to a Ukrainian regional official and a pro-Russian military blogger. On Sunday, Zelensky said Ukraine’s military had taken Arkhanhelske and Myroliubivka.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that he believes Ukraine is “making progress” in Kherson, thanks in part to weapons provided by Washington. “What we’re seeing now is sort of a shift in battlefield dynamics,” he said.
“They did very, very well in the Kharkiv area and moved to take advantage of opportunities. The fight in the Kherson region is a little slower, but they are making progress.”
The losses have drawn an unusual amount of criticism from critical pro-Russian propagandists in recent days. A prominent pro-Russian government tabloid, Komsomolskaya Pravda, said Russian forces had to retreat in the strategically important town of Lyman because they lacked manpower and communicated poorly, and commanders made “mistakes”.
What Russia is trying to annex
Donetsk and Luhansk are two of the four regions Russia has said it will annex. Both are home to Russian-backed breakaway republics, and fighting has raged in both since 2014. The other areas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, are both in southern Ukraine and have been occupied by Russian forces since the invasion began in late February. .
In a formal speech at the opulent St. George’s Hall of the Kremlin on Friday, Putin announced that Russia would move forward with the annexation of these four regions, after so-called referendums in those areas returned results purporting to show that the majority of people living there voted in favor of accession to Russian sovereignty. .
The disputes were widely criticized as a sham that failed to meet internationally recognized standards of free and fair elections. Reports from the field suggested that the vote essentially and literally took place at gunpoint.
Countries around the world quickly condemned Putin’s announcement that the regions would be annexed. Members of the G7 – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States – and the European Union said they would never recognize the Kremlin’s sovereignty over the regions and vowed to “impose more economic costs on Russia”.
EU member states began convening Russian ambassadors in a coordinated manner on Friday to “convey strong condemnation of these actions” and demand the “immediate halt of measures that undermine Ukraine’s territorial integrity and violate the UN Charter and international law.” ”, said a spokesperson for the bloc.
Source: CNN Brasil
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