KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed laws formally absorbing four Ukrainian regions into Russia, even as its military struggles to control the territory that was illegally annexed.
The documents finalizing the annexation, carried out in defiance of international laws, were published on a Russian government website on Wednesday morning, according to AP.
Earlier this week, both houses of the Russian parliament ratified treaties making the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions part of Russia. That followed Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums” in the four regions that Ukraine and the West have rejected as a sham.
On the ground, Moscow’s war in Ukraine has entered a new, more dangerous phase. Russia faces mounting setbacks, with Ukrainian forces retaking more and more land in the east and in the south — the very regions Moscow has pushed to annex.
The borders of the territories Russia is claiming still remain unclear, but the Kremlin has vowed to defend Russia’s territory — the newly absorbed regions too — with any means at its disposal, including nuclear weapons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the annexation by announcing a fast-track application to join NATO and formally ruling out talks with Russia. Zelenskyy’s decree, released on Tuesday, declares that holding negotiations with Putin has become impossible after his decision to take over the four regions of Ukraine.
The head of Zelenskyy’s office, Andriy Yermak, wrote on his Telegram channel shortly after Putin signed the annexation that “the worthless decisions of the terrorist country (Russia) are not worth the paper they are signed on.
“A collective insane asylum can continue to live in a fictional world,” he added.
Russia and Ukraine gave conflicting assessments on Wednesday of a Ukrainian offensive in the strategic southern Kherson region — one of the four areas that Russia is annexing.
A Russian-installed official in the Kherson region insisted that Ukrainian advances in the region have been halted.
Kirill Stremousov, in comments to the state-run news agency RIA Novosti, said that “as of this morning … there are no movements” by Kyiv’s forces. He vowed that “they won’t enter (the city of) Kherson, it is impossible.”
However, Kyiv’s military said on Wednesday they have recaptured more villages in the Kherson region as a part of their massive counteroffensive effort. Operational Command South said that the Ukrainian flag has been raised above seven villages previously occupied by the Russians.
Military hospitals are full of wounded Russian soldiers, and Russian military medics lack medicaments, wrote Deputy Head of Kherson regional administration Yurii Sobolevskyi on Telegram. After the condition of Russian soldiers stabilises, they are sent for further treatment in Crimea. “Not everyone arrives,” he wrote.
On the battlefield on Wednesday multiple explosions rocked Bila Tserkva, setting off fires at what were described as infrastructure facilities in the city to the south of the capital Kyiv, regional leader Oleksiy Kuleba said on Telegram.
