Russia to formally annex occupied regions in Ukraine on Friday
Vladimir Putin will sign a decree annexing four occupied regions in Ukraine tomorrow, the Kremlin has announced.
Russian state-owned news agency Tass cites Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, as saying that the ceremony of the signing of agreements into the Russian Federation will be held on Friday at 3pm Moscow time.
The Russian president will hold a signing ceremony in the Kremlin, after which he is expected to give a major speech and meet with Moscow-appointed administrators of the Ukrainian regions, Peskov said.
Hello everyone, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong with you today to bring you all the latest from the Russia-Ukraine war. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
Key events
Finland to ban Russian tourists after mobilisation order
Finland will close its border to Russian tourists from midnight local time (2100 GMT), the Finnish government has announced.
The announcement by Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto comes after Vladimir Putin’s decision to order a mobilisation prompted a flood of Russians to flee the country.
The move is expected to lead to a significant drop in cross-border traffic, Haavisto told a news conference.
Entry for family visits, as well as for work and studies, will still be permitted, he added.
Putin to hold signing ceremony to annex four Ukrainian regions to Russia
Here’s more from the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, who has announced that President Vladimir Putin will hold a signing ceremony tomorrow to add four territories of Ukraine into Russia.
A signing ceremony will take place at 3pm Moscow-time (1200 GMT) on Friday “on agreements on the accession of new territories into the Russian Federation”, Peskov said.
Agreements will be signed “with all four territories that held referendums and made corresponding requests to the Russian side,” Peskov said.
The total area set to become de facto part of Russia amounts to around 15% of Ukraine and includes around four million people. The so-called referendums in the occupied regions of Ukraine have been denounced by the west as illegal and illegitimate.
Following the signing ceremonies in the Kremlin, Putin will give a major speech and will meet with Moscow-appointed administrators of the Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin said.
The Kremlin’s announcement that Russia will formally annex four more areas of Ukraine comes after so-called referendums in those occupied regions that have already been denounced by Kyiv and the west.
Once annexed, Russia’s leadership has said it will consider attacks on the Russian-controlled areas a direct attack on Russia.
Announcing the so-called referendums in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions of Ukraine last week, Vladimir Putin threatened to respond with nuclear weapons if Russia’s national security was threatened.
The four-day-long fake referendum in the Russian-occupied regions concluded on Tuesday and as predicted, the results reported by Russian state media showed overwhelming support for joining Russia.
Residents who escaped to Ukrainian-held areas in recent days have told of people being forced to mark ballots in the street at gunpoint. Footage on social media shows Russian-installed officials taking ballot boxes from house to house with armed men in tow.
On Wednesday, the Russian-installed administrations of the four Ukrainian provinces formally asked Putin to incorporate them into Russia.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has described them as “an imitation of referendums” and vowed to “defend” Ukrainian citizens in Russian-occupied regions.
Russia to formally annex occupied regions in Ukraine on Friday
Vladimir Putin will sign a decree annexing four occupied regions in Ukraine tomorrow, the Kremlin has announced.
Russian state-owned news agency Tass cites Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, as saying that the ceremony of the signing of agreements into the Russian Federation will be held on Friday at 3pm Moscow time.
The Russian president will hold a signing ceremony in the Kremlin, after which he is expected to give a major speech and meet with Moscow-appointed administrators of the Ukrainian regions, Peskov said.
Hello everyone, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong with you today to bring you all the latest from the Russia-Ukraine war. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
Summary of the day so far …
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Sweden’s coast guard earlier this week discovered a fourth gas leak on the damaged Nord Stream pipelines, a coast guard spokesperson told the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper.
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Politicians across Europe have warned that the suspected sabotaging of the two Nord Stream pipelines could herald a new stage of hybrid warfare targeting vulnerable energy infrastructure in order to undermine support of Ukraine. Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, said his country would step up its military presence at Norwegian installations after the country became Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas.
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Denmark’s foreign minister, Jeppe Kofod, has said that “intentional” explosions caused the leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines, and that it was an “unprecedented” attack.
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The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has proposed a fresh round of sanctions on Russia designed “to make the Kremlin pay” for escalating the conflict in Ukraine. The proposed eighth package of “biting” sanctions includes a cap on the price of Russian oil and further curbs on hi-tech trade.
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An EU official has given a briefing to Reuters saying that an agreement on the next sanctions package against Russia is expected before next week’s EU summit, or at least major parts of the package.
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On Moscow’s Red Square, giant video screens have been set up, with billboards proclaiming “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson – Russia!”
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Russian state Duma deputies have been invited to an event at the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin for 3pm on Friday 30 September. It will possibly be the moment that the Russian president addresses in public the next stage of the inevitable annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson from occupied Ukraine.
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The UK ministry of defence has claimed in its latest intelligence briefing that more men have now likely fled conscription from Russia’s partial mobilisation than Russia initially used in its invasion force of Ukraine.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said overnight Ukraine will “act to protect our people” in Russian-occupied regions after what he described as “an imitation of referendums”. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Kyiv and its allies “condemn such actions of Russia and consider them null and worthless”.
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Britain’s prime minister, Liz Truss, told Zelenskiy in a phone call yesterday that the UK would never recognise Russian attempts to annex parts of Ukraine, Downing Street said. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, also denounced the “illegal referenda and their falsified outcome” in Ukraine.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Léonie Chao-Fong will be here shortly to continue our coverage.
The RIA Novosti news agency in Russia is reporting that “State Duma deputies received an invitation to the Kremlin for an event on 30 September with the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin”.
RIA states that the state duma deputy Denis Parfyonov said the event would start at 3pm Moscow time (1pm BST).
There has been considerable speculation about when Putin might respond in public to the so-called results of the “referendums” staged by Russian proxy authorities in occupied Ukraine.
Oleksandr Stryuk, mayor of Sievierodonetsk, has posted an update to Telegram with some images claiming to be from Russian attacks overnight on the city of Orikhiv. He said:
Private houses suffered numerous destructions. As a result of the shelling, there were fires with a total area of tens of square metres. Firefighters quickly contained the fire. According to available information, there are no victims. Today, the occupier again shelled the city of Huliaipole. Three houses were destroyed. The enemy continues the policy of terror and intimidation. Objects of civil infrastructure are targets every time.
The claims have not have been independently verified.
Helena Smith
Over in Greece the Ukrainian president has been speaking about the importance of democracy in tyrannical times, Helena Smith reports from Athens.
Addressing the 10th Athens Democracy Forum, Volodymyr Zelenskiy underlined it was unity that reinforced democracy and unity that would ultimately ensure its success.
People feel that right now something is happening that could become decisive in the centuries-old confrontation between democracy and tyranny,” he said as the Forum opened in the Greek capital on Wednesday evening.
And it is precisely in this address, precisely to the Athens Democracy Forum, that I want to say that I am sure: we will be able to guarantee the future of democracy, we will be able to protect it.
We will, because we know what gives democracy strength, what serves as its heart, ensuring the supply of freedom, like blood, to every part of a democratic society – to every person. This is unity. Unity is the most important thing.
Zelenskiy, who was awarded the 2022 City of Athens Democracy prize in the name of the people of Ukraine by the mayor, Kostas Bakoyannis, insisted that the unity the west had shown in the face of Russian brute force was reflected in the setbacks the Russian military had suffered on the battlefield. Continuing his address he said:
We see this now in the war that Russia has waged against our people and against our common democratic system. The greater unity we have, the more tangible Russian defeats are.
Democracy does not live in the government offices or even in the parliament hall. Democracy lives between people. And that is why it is so important that there are no isolated groups in societies – be it the ruling group, or any other privileged groups, or any unintegrated minorities.
After the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine, we managed to achieve the greatest unity of Europe and the democratic community of the whole world in decades. But the greatest does not mean the maximum.
We have a lot to do to further strengthen our unity. And every such step to strengthen is a step to protect democracy. Not just somewhere, not just in some country, but in general – for all of us and for our children.
For all free nations. Forever free.
Greece has stalwartly stood by its Nato and EU allies in opposing Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine despite what were once strong ties with fellow Orthodox Russia. Athens’s stance has infuriated Russia with the two sides exchanging sharp words and anti-Putin graffiti appearing in the Greek capital.
Zelenskiy ended his speech thanking the country for its “significant support.”
“It is with great honour that I accept the award of the city of Athens for the Ukrainian people, for our people, for their contribution to the protection of democratic values.,” he said.
Earlier we reported a brief statement from the Russian foreign ministry that the Nord Stream incident occurred in areas under the control of US intelligence. [See 8.15am]
Reuters is now carrying the quote from the foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova. She said:
It happened in the trade and economic zones of Denmark and Sweden. They are Nato-centric countries. They are countries that are completely controlled by the US intelligence services.
Zakharova offered no evidence for the Danish and Swedish governments being “completely controlled by the US intelligence services”. The Nord Stream incident happened in international waters, and not within the territorial waters of Sweden or Denmark. Sweden is not yet a member of Nato.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine over the newswires.
An EU official has given a briefing to Reuters saying that an agreement on the next sanctions package against Russia is expected before next week’s EU summit, or at least major parts of the package.
The official went on to tell the agency that they expected the summit to focus on the recent “referendums” carried out by proxy-Russian authorities in occupied areas of Ukraine, possible annexations by Russia, Russia’s nuclear threats and the disruption to the Nord Stream pipelines.
EU leaders are also expected to discuss different ideas for energy price caps at the summit, which the EU official expects to be a tense one “as we are in difficult times”.
Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has already indicated he is unlikely to back another tranche of sanctions, and recently announced a “national consultation” to see if EU sanctions against Russia had the backing of the Hungarian people.
Given the tricky nature of pulling off a sabotage attack against the Nord Stream pipelines undetected, most analysts agree that only state actors could have carried it out. Russia has been keen to cast the blame in the direction of the US.
This morning the Russian foreign ministry has, according to the RIA Novosti news agency, issued a brief statement saying that the “incident on the Nord Stream occurred in a zone controlled by American intelligence”.
Overnight the Russian embassy in the US issued a statement on Telegram again drawing attention to “the promises made by President Biden to ‘bring an end’ to the Nord Stream 2 project”, and saying:
We note the attempts by some US legislators to put blame on Russia for the incidents. Perhaps, they have a better view from the top of Capitol Hill. But if that is the case, they must also have seen the US warships’ activities at the very site of the Russian infrastructure disruption just the day before. Or noticed drones and helicopters fly over there. Or observed US navy exercises with underwater explosives that have been conducted in the same area some time ago.
What is obvious to us is that those who ponder about the incident seem to forget to ask the main question: who benefits from the pipelines’ rupture? For our part, we insist on the need for a comprehensive and objective examination of the circumstances of the unprecedented attacks on Russian pipelines.
Russian sources have repeatedly referenced the words of Joe Biden and his administration earlier this year as the US and Germany threatened that Nord Stream 2 would not be opened if Russia invaded Ukraine.
In January the state department spokesperson Ned Price said: “I want to be very clear: if Russia invades Ukraine one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward. I’m not going to get into the specifics. We will work with Germany to ensure it does not move forward.”
Several days later, on 8 February, at a joint press event with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, Biden said the pipeline project would be ended if Russia put troops on the ground in Ukraine, saying: “If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
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