Russia sets date to annex occupied Ukraine regions amid battlefield setbacks
- Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces will hold their votes on joining Russia from September 23-27
- Former president Medvedev said the referendums, denounced as illegal by the West, would change the geopolitical landscape in Moscow’s favour forever
Four Russian-controlled regions in Ukraine announced plans to hold referendums on joining Russia later this week and an ally of President Vladimir Putin said the votes would alter the geopolitical landscape in Moscow’s favour forever.
The move, which seriously escalates Moscow’s stand-off with the West, comes after Russia suffered a battlefield reversal in northeast Ukraine and as Putin ponders his next steps in a nearly seven-month-old conflict that has caused the most serious East-West rift since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Russian-installed officials announced planned referendums for September 23-27 in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces, representing around 15 per cent of Ukrainian territory or an area about the size of Hungary or Portugal.
In a post on social media addressed to Putin, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Denis Pushilin wrote: “I ask you, as soon as possible, in the event of a positive decision in the referendum – which we have no doubt about – to consider the DPR becoming a part of Russia.”
Ukraine and the United States have said such referendums would be an illegal sham and have made clear that they and many other countries would not recognise the results.