- Russian annexation of four condemned regions worldwide
- The move is a “dangerous escalation” that endangers peace, according to the UN chief
- Ukraine’s Zelenskiy says Putin must be stopped for war to end
- Zelenskiy calls an emergency meeting on security and defense
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine, Sept 30 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s annexation of a swath of Ukraine on Friday in a Kremlin speech, but the event was overshadowed by one of the worst defeats of the war of Russia on the battlefield, with one of its main garrisons surrounded.
“People living in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson region and Zaporizhzhia region are becoming our compatriots forever,” Putin told a crowd of officials at a ceremony in a decorated hall.
“We will defend our land with all our forces and all our means,” he said, and asked “the Kyiv regime to immediately cease hostilities and return to the negotiating table.”
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Putin’s proclamation of Russian rule of 15 percent of Ukraine – Europe’s largest annexation since World War II – has been strongly rejected by Western countries and even many of Russia’s close allies. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it an illegal violation of the UN charter.
It comes as Russian forces have faced setbacks on the battlefield, with one of the worst yet in sight even as Putin spoke. Pro-Russian officials acknowledged that Russian troops were about to be encircled in Lyman, their main garrison in northern Donetsk province.
Defeat there could pave the way for Ukraine to reclaim swaths of territory that Putin has now declared as part of Russia.
The brutality of the war was hammered home again just hours before Putin’s speech when missiles hit a convoy of civilian cars preparing to cross the front line from Ukrainian-held territory in Zaporozhzhia province. Reuters saw a dozen bodies amid blown-up cars in a scene of carnage. Ukraine said there were 25 dead and 74 injured.
“The enemy is enraged and seeks revenge for our steadfastness and failures,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram. “Bloodthirsty scum! You will surely answer. For every Ukrainian life lost!”
LYMAN
The encirclement of the Russian garrison in Lyman leaves a path open for Ukrainian forces to seize more territory in Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, previously captured in some of the heaviest fighting of the war.
The pro-Russian leader in Donetsk acknowledged that troops had lost full control of Yampil and Dobryshev, towns north and east of the town of Lyman, leaving the Moscow garrison “half-encircled”.
The Ukrainian army “was trying at all costs to spoil our historical events,” Denis Pushilin said. “This is very unpleasant news, but we must look at the situation soberly and draw conclusions from our mistakes.”
Ukraine’s military said it was withholding details of the situation on the battlefield until the area was stabilized, but that an operation was underway to encircle Russian forces.
“All approaches and logistic routes of the enemy, through which they delivered ammunition and manpower, are in fact under fire control” of the Ukrainian army, said Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesman for the troops Ukrainians in the east.
Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko tweeted: “Lyman is surrounded! The Ukrainian army is already in Yampil. The Russian army is trying to escape.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Denis Pushilin, Leonid Pasechnik, Vladimir Saldo and Yevgeny Balitsky, who are the leaders installed by Russia in Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, attend a ceremony to declare the annexation of four territories controlled by Russia. The Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, after holding what Russian authorities called referendums in the occupied areas of Ukraine that were condemned by Kyiv and governments around the world, in the Georgievsky Hall of the Great Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia on September 30, 2022. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS
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Pro-Russian military bloggers reported that Ukrainian forces had cut off the escape of thousands of Russian troops. Pushilin said a road to Lyman was still open, though he acknowledged it was now under Ukrainian artillery fire.
SHEETS WRAPPED OVER BODY
Hours before Putin spoke, missiles tore through a convoy of civilian cars preparing to cross from Ukrainian-held territory near Zaporizhzhia into Russian-held territory, killing at least 23 civilians.
Ukrainian officials called it a deliberate Russian attempt to cut the last links on the front. Moscow blamed the Ukrainians.
The convoy was gathering at a parking lot near Zaporizhzhia, the Ukrainian capital of a region Moscow claims to annex. A checkpoint has been opened in the area in recent days, allowing civilians to cross the front line.
A crater had been dug in the ground. The impact had thrown chunks of dirt into the air and sprayed shrapnel over cars full of belongings, blankets and suitcases. Reuters saw around a dozen bodies.
Plastic sheets were placed over the bodies of a woman and a young man in a green car. Two bodies were in a white van in front of another car, the windows broken and the sides riddled with shrapnel. Nearby, next to the shopping bag, was the dead body of an elderly woman.
A woman who gave her name as Nataliya said she and her husband had visited their children in Zaporizhzhia and were preparing to return to Russian-held territory.
“We were coming back with my mother who is 90 years old. They spared us. It’s a miracle,” she said, standing with her husband next to their car.
Police Colonel Sergey Ujryumov, head of the explosives disposal unit of the Zaporizhzhia police, said the parking lot was hit by three S300 missiles.
Pro-Russian officials said, without evidence, that Ukraine was to blame for the attack. Russia has always denied that its forces target civilians, despite countless confirmed incidents documented by the United Nations and other bodies.
CLIMBING
Russia’s annexation of the Russian-held areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia took place after what the West denounced as fake referendums held at gunpoint.
As Putin’s troops were forced to flee Ukraine’s Kharkiv province this month, he has chosen to escalate the war. Last week he endorsed the annexation of Russian-held territory, ordered the call-up of hundreds of thousands of reservists and threatened to use nuclear weapons if Russia was attacked.
Zelenskiy vowed a strong response to the annexations and summoned his defense and security chiefs for an emergency meeting on Friday.
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Reuters bureau reports; Written by Peter Graff; Editing by Robert Birsel, Angus MacSwan and Alex Richardson
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