Russia Will Move To Take Over Ukrainian Regions On Friday Kremlin Says
Russia Will Move To Take Over Ukrainian Regions On Friday, Kremlin Says https://digitalalabamanews.com/russia-will-move-to-take-over-ukrainian-regions-on-friday-kremlin-says/
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Banners read “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson — Russia!” in Red Square in central Moscow on Wednesday.Credit…Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
President Vladimir V. Putin will sign agreements on Friday for the Russian Federation to take over four Ukrainian territories, the Kremlin said on Thursday, outlining plans to annex the regions after referendums that were widely denounced as a sham.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, also said Mr. Putin would make a speech at the Kremlin.
As the Kremlin prepared a show designed to present a sheen of legitimacy to its annexation, the authorities in Moscow put up billboards and a giant video screen in Red Square and announced road closures for Friday.
The annexation move has been greeted with international condemnation, and Ukraine has essentially ignored the Kremlin’s plans. Kyiv’s forces have pressed on with a counteroffensive that has enabled them to retake territory in the northeast of the country this month and make inroads into Donetsk and Luhansk, two of the regions where referendums were held.
In a speech late on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine reiterated his denunciation of the votes and said he was working with foreign leaders to coordinate a strong international response.
“Our key task now is to coordinate actions with partners in response to sham referendums organized by Russia and all related threats,” Mr. Zelensky said.
The billboards proclaimed: “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson — Russia!” naming the regions in southern and eastern Ukraine where Russian proxy officials staged votes in the last week.
All four regions are partially occupied by Russian troops and the referendums, put on hastily in the face of the military setbacks for the Kremlin, purported to return big majorities in favor of joining Russia.
Governments around the world say the votes lacked democratic legitimacy, given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the coercion of voters, the absence of independent observers and the flight of many civilians from the areas because of fighting. In addition, the government in Kyiv told its citizens not to participate.
The sequence of choreographed steps for a region to join the Russian Federation is laid out in the country’s constitution and is expected to be followed in the coming days. That follows the pattern of a similar vote in Crimea, a region of southern Ukraine that was annexed by Russia in 2014.
Following the announcements of vote totals, Russian proxy officials in the four occupied areas appealed on Wednesday to join Russia. Members of Russia’s Parliament, which acts as a rubber stamp for Mr. Putin, were invited to an event at the Kremlin on Friday.
After Mr. Putin’s announcement on Friday, the Russian proxy leaders in the territories were expected to sign agreements with Moscow outlining their status once they are made part of Russia. Those agreements would then be ratified, first by the constitutional court and then by the Parliament, or Duma.
The Kremlin would then introduce a draft law on the admission of the territories into Russia, which would then be passed into law by the Duma. Once Russia’s Federation Council passes the draft, it would be signed into law by Mr. Putin, completing the process.
Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin announced on Wednesday that the Duma should hold its accession sessions to approve the annexation next Monday and Tuesday.
— Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Oleg Matsnev
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A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) produced by Lockheed Martin during combat training at the Yakima Training Center, Wash.Credit…Tony Overman/The Olympian, via Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said on Wednesday it would send an additional $1.1 billion in long-term military aid to Ukraine, including 18 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launchers, or HIMARS, one of the most vaunted weapons of the seven-month war with Russia.
But unlike the 16 HIMARS the military rushed to Ukraine from its existing stockpiles over the summer, these new weapons will be ordered from the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, and will take “a few years” to deliver, a senior Defense Department official told reporters.
Shifting the source of Ukrainian military supplies from the Pentagon’s own stockpile, which is large but not limitless, to items newly manufactured by the defense industry indicates that the White House and military leaders are transitioning to a sustainable model Kyiv can depend on for an open-ended war with Russia.
Privately, American commanders have also voiced concern that if the United States sends more HIMARS vehicles immediately, the Ukrainians will burn through the rocket ammunition provided by the Pentagon too quickly, potentially jeopardizing American military readiness in coming months.
The promise of new military aid comes at a critical time in the war, when Ukraine has the momentum on the battlefield, and has retaken vast stretches of land in the east and is pressing entrenched Russian forces in the south.
The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, is mobilizing up to 300,000 reservists in an attempt to shore up his forces, and Ukrainian commanders are pushing to try to take back as much territory as they can before the winter freeze forces both sides to slow their operations and dig in. The HIMARs systems have proven effective at cutting Russian supply lines, destroying ammunition depots, bridges, rail links, and troop concentrations far beyond the lines.
Asked why the Pentagon didn’t just send more of the advanced rocket launchers from its own inventories — as President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has repeatedly requested — the senior Defense Department official sidestepped the question, saying the future delivery was to ensure Ukraine “will have what it needs for the long haul to deter future threats.”
Pentagon officials have said for weeks that with the American HIMARS and 10 similar rocket systems already delivered to the battlefield — 26 rocket-launchers in all — Ukraine has enough of the weapons to attack the Russian targets it wants. Indeed, the satellite-guided rockets fired by HIMARS have struck more than 400 Russian ammunition depots, command posts and radars.
The new shipment announced on Wednesday also includes 150 Humvees, 150 vehicles for towing artillery, radars, counter-drone systems and body armor, which the senior Pentagon official said would be delivered from manufacturers in the next six to 24 months. That brings to $16.2 billion in total military aid that the United States has committed to Ukraine since the war started in February.
The $1.1 billion in new equipment will be paid for by the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a congressionally approved fund that allows Ukrainian leaders to purchase military goods directly from the defense industry.
At the same virtual briefing for reporters on Wednesday, a senior U.S. military official said the first “small group” of Russians from the 300,000 conscripts ordered mobilized had arrived in Ukraine. The official did not provide details on how many new conscripts had been sent to the battlefield or where they were located.
But the official, who like the senior Pentagon official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, expressed skepticism that the Kremlin could properly mobilize, train and equip anywhere near that total number of new troops.
“Just the mechanics of outfitting that size of a force is very difficult,” the senior U.S. military official said.
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A photo from the Danish military showing gas welling up off the coast of Bornholm island on Tuesday.Credit…Armed Forces of Denmark, via Associated Press
BERLIN — Two days after a pair of explosions under the Baltic Sea apparently ruptured giant natural gas pipelines from Russia to Germany, the consensus hardened on Wednesday that it was an act of sabotage. The European Union and several European governments labeled it an attack and demanded an investigation.
Experts said it could take months to assess and repair the damage to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which were already being used as leverage in the West’s confrontation with Moscow over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. News of a possible attack on them heightened already intense fears of painful energy shortages in Europe over the winter.
But the central mystery remains: Who did it?
“All available information indicates those leaks are the result of a deliberate act,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell Fontelles, said in a statement on Wednesday. “We will support any investigation aimed at getting full clarity on what happened and why.”
Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, called the episode “apparent sabotage.”
But with little evidence to go on — American officials said that explosive gas pouring from the broken pipes made it too dangerous to get close to the breach — the United States and most of its European allies stopped short of publicly naming any suspects. Still, some officials speculated about the many ways that Russia might gain — even though the pipeline carries its gas.
Poland and Ukraine openly blamed Russia, which pointed a finger at the United States, and both Moscow and Washington issued indignant denials. Other theories bandied about included speculation over whether Ukraine or Baltic States, which have long opposed the pipeline, might have had an interest in seeing it disabled — and sending a message.
“It’s hard to assess, does anybody benefit?” Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, told the news outlet Helsingin Sanomat. “That is why this is a mystery so far.”
Some European and American officials cautioned on Wednesday that it would be premature to conclude that Russia had been behind the apparent atta...
