Join now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
LONDON, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Russia will on Friday launch its plan to annex about 15% of Ukrainian territory by referendum in four regions controlled by Russian forces, a move the West sees as a clear violation of international law. which greatly escalated the war.
After nearly seven months of war and a critical battlefield defeat in northeastern Ukraine earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin explicitly backed referendums after Russian-controlled regions aligned to ask for quick votes to join Russia.
The so-called People’s Republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR), which Putin recognized as independent just before the invasion, and the Russian-installed administrations in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions will hold votes.
Join now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
The vote, which the West and Ukraine consider a sham, is due to start on Friday and end on Tuesday, with results expected soon after.
Russia will officially annex the areas after the results.
“The Kremlin is holding a sham referendum to try to annex parts of Ukraine,” US President Joe Biden said during the 77th session of the UN General Assembly.
“Ukraine has the same rights that belong to every sovereign nation. We will stand in solidarity with Ukraine,” said Biden, who framed the war as part of a global competition between democracy and autocracy.
Ukraine, whose post-Soviet borders are recognized by Russia under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, says it will never accept Russian control of any of its territories and will fight until that the last Russian soldier is expelled.
Putin, Russia’s supreme leader since 1999, has said Russia will never abandon those in regions it controls who he believes want to secede from Kyiv.
He presents the war both as a battle to save Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine from persecution and as a way to foil what he says is a Western plot to destroy Russia. Ukraine denies that Russian speakers were persecuted.
In a direct nuclear warning to the West, Putin said he would defend Russian territory – and those parts of Ukraine will be considered Russian territory by Moscow shortly – with all means at his disposal.
‘FAKE VOTES’
It’s unclear exactly how votes will work in a war zone when so many people have been displaced. Russia controls most of Lugansk and Kherson, about 80% of Zaporizhzhia and only 60% of Donetsk. Fighting continues in all four regions.
The results are not in doubt.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Russian-installed officials in the regions were setting made-up voter turnout and approval rating targets, with some turnout figures already agreed.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after the overthrow of a pro-Russian president in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, while Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass – which includes Donetsk and Luhansk – have sought to break away from control of Kyiv.
After Russian forces took control of Crimea, which has an ethnic Russian majority and was transferred to Soviet-era Ukraine, on February 27, 2014, a referendum on joining Russia was held March 16.
Crimea’s leaders have declared a 97% vote to secede from Ukraine. Russia officially added Crimea on March 21. Kyiv and the West said the referendum violated Ukraine’s constitution and international law.
“From next week, Russia will consider these Ukrainian territories as part of Russia, and will label any Ukrainian attempt to retake its own sovereign territory as an ‘invasion of Russia,'” Britain’s Cleverly said.
Join now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Written by Guy Faulconbridge and Felix Light; Editing by Daniel Wallis
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.