Russia forges ahead with annexation plan despite military retreats

October 5 ------ Russian President Vladimir Putin may have finalized his plan to annex four Ukrainian regions, even as his forces are being pushed back by Ukraine, shrinking the amount of seized territory he controls.

Russia, which has escalated its seven-month war with its annexation drive, a military mobilization and warnings of nuclear weapons use, looks in a hurry to complete a process Ukraine and the West say is illegal and will not be recognized. The upper house of Russia’s parliament voted to approve the four regions’ incorporation into Russia, which taken together represent around 18% of Ukraine. The Kremlin said that Putin’s signature, the final stage in the process, was likely later in the day.

In Brussels, the European Union summoned Russia’s envoy to the EU to reject Moscow’s “illegal annexation” and urge it to unconditionally withdraw all of its troops from the entire territory of Ukraine. Russia does not completely control any of the four regions it says it is annexing – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – and the Kremlin has said it has yet to determine the final borders of the annexed territory.

Moscow is hoping a “partial mobilization” it announced two weeks ago could help turn the tide. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was cited by the RIA news agency as saying that Russia had so far called up more than 200,000 reservists out of a planned 300,000 men. Many Russian men have fled the country rather than fight in Ukraine, however, and Russian lawyers say they are working flat out to offer advice to men who want to avoid being drafted. Some Russians are making journeys of thousands of miles by car, train and plane to escape. President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Ukraine’s northern neighbor and an ally of Putin, accused Kyiv of sending 15,000 troops to the border area to build defenses and conduct reconnaissance, actions he called “provocations”.

A Russian missile crashed into the outskirts of the eastern Ukraine-controlled city of Kramatorsk. A reporter on the scene said the missile had gouged a huge crater in the backyard of a house. The carcass of a second missile that apparently failed to detonate sat about 150 meters away in the yard of another house after crashing through its roof. A woman was taken to hospital after her husband pulled her from the rubble of their home. In a decree, Zelensky formally declared any talks with Putin “impossible”, while leaving the door open to talks with Moscow if it got a new leader. The Kremlin said what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine would not end if Kyiv ruled out talks, adding that it “takes two sides to negotiate”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said Moscow did not want to take part in “nuclear rhetoric” spread by the West, after Britain’s Times newspaper reported that NATO had warned members Putin might test an atomic weapon on Ukraine’s border. The newspaper said Russia had moved a train thought to be linked to a unit responsible for nuclear munitions.

The Kremlin had more time however for a potential peace plan floated on Twitter by billionaire Elon Musk, whereby Ukraine would cede Crimea, allow new referendums on Russian-occupied land and agree to neutrality. “It is very positive that somebody like Elon Musk is looking for a peaceful way out of this situation,” said Peskov of the plan, which was denounced by Kyiv as an effective reward for Moscow’s invasion.

Source: rappler.com