Russia is reportedly moving ahead with plans to hold staggered votes that would allow it to annex parts of Ukraine where its military has taken control.
“In the newly occupied territories in southern Ukraine, it is very likely that the Russian-established authorities will be under increasing pressure from Moscow to consolidate their control over the region and prepare for referendums on joining Russia later in the year,” the UK Ministry of Defense said kingdom on Saturday in an intelligence update posted on Twitter. “Local authorities probably force the population to reveal personal data in order to compile voter lists.”
The assessment followed warnings from the US ambassador to the UN that Russia plans to destroy Ukraine “and completely remove it from the world map”.
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN Security Council on Friday that the United States is seeing growing signs that Russia is laying the groundwork to try to annex all of Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia.
Photojournalist Yevgeny Maloletka flees fire in a burning wheat field during his assignment after Russian shelling.AP
One of their tactics is installing “illegitimate proxies in Russian-controlled areas in order to hold fake referendums or a decree to join Russia,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “even stated that this is Russia’s military objective,” she added.
Lavrov told an Arab summit in Cairo on Sunday that Moscow’s main goal in Ukraine was to liberate its people from its “unacceptable regime”.
Zelensky takes a selfie with a wounded soldier in a city hospital in Odessa.AP
He also suggested that Moscow’s military objectives extended beyond the already occupied eastern and southern regions. “We will certainly help the Ukrainian people to free themselves from the regime, which is absolutely anti-people and anti-historical,” Lavrov said.
With pole cables
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