According to the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin will officially annex four largely Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine on Friday. Kyiv and its Western allies have already denounced this action as unlawful and pointless.
The ceremony to officially welcome Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia into Russia will begin at 3 p.m Moscow time, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The Kremlin’s St. George’s Hall will host the signing of the treaties alongside the Moscow-appointed governors of the Ukrainian districts, he continued.
After Tuesday’s annexation votes in the four regions, the action was generally anticipated. Local officials who were supported by Moscow asserted that a resounding majority of voters had chosen to join Russia.
Seven months after Russia’s invasion started, the hastily planned ballots were held.
Ukraine called the elections fraud and vowed to punish those who helped organize them as well as step up its counter-offensive.
According to the Kremlin, Putin will deliver a speech following the signing ceremonies.
The Russian-installed presidents of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia had arrived in the capital ahead of Friday’s activities, according to Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, who was reporting from Moscow.
“There is preparation for a big public celebration in Moscow’s Red Square … so all the signs are indicating that Russia is determined to take the decision and make it [the annexations] a fact,” Vall said.
“Russia is talking about this as a correction of history – saying that those regions and Russia have been wronged,” he added.
“Moscow also says it will take every measure necessary to defend them after the annexations, and has even spoken in the last few weeks about nuclear weapons being used to defend what it will call, from tomorrow perhaps, its national territory.”
The four regions make up around 15% of Ukraine’s total territory.
Russian tactics of annexation are nothing new. A largely condemned referendum also led to Russia annexing the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine eight years prior.
None of Ukraine’s allies have yet to recognize Crimea as Russian territory.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/.