OLENA ROSHCHINA — WEDNESDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2022, 09:48
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed “the laws on acceptance” into the Russian Federation of the occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson Oblasts.
Source: Kremlin-aligned news outlets RIA Novosti and TASS
Details: On 5 October, Putin signed laws ratifying the “treaties” on accession and federal constitutional laws on “accepting” the “DPR, LPR [Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic – self-proclaimed formations in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts respectively – ed.], Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts” as Russian federal subjects, as reported by Russian propagandists.
It should be noted that the Kremlin has not even created the semblance of so-called republics for the territories of occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts – they have simply annexed them.
Putin has appointed Denys Pushylin to be the temporary acting “Head of the DPR”; Leonid Pasichnyk as the temporary acting “Head of LPR”; Yevhen Balytskyi as the temporary acting “governor” of Zaporizhzhia Oblasts; Volodymyr Saldo as the temporary acting “governor of Kherson Oblast”.
Those were the people that the Russian President signed sham and legally void “treaties” on the “acceptance” of the occupied territories of the east and the south of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.
Kyrylo Stremousov, a Kremlin-appointed puppet, has already stated that there is no customs control on the “border” between Kherson Oblast and Crimea.
Russian propagandists have shared a map which indicates that the entire Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk Oblasts are now parts of the Russian Federation, even though there are battles going on for those territories, and part of them is controlled by the Ukrainian authorities.
Russian state-owned news outlet RIA Novosti says that this means approximately 8.8 million residents.
Ukraine and the democratic world do not recognise either the results of the sham referendums on the occupied territories, or the so-called accession of any other part of Ukraine to Russia, as was the case with Crimea, illegally annexed in 2014.
Background:
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On 21 September, amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly supported sham referendums within the occupied territories of Ukraine and announced partial mobilisation in Russia.
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On 27 September, Russian-appointed puppets in the occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts completed the sham referendums on accession to Russia. Their results were known beforehand.
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On 30 September, Vladimir Putin signed the “agreement on the accession to Russia” of the occupied Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts and declared that henceforth, residents of these territories are citizens of the Russian Federation. The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation approved this package of documents, and the State Duma and Federation Council [the lower and upper chambers of the Russian Parliament respectively] “ratified” it.
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The Russian government has provided a so-called transition period until 2026 for the annexed territories. Occupiers are already planning “elections” to the so-called parliaments for 2023.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said in response to the annexation that Ukraine is ready for negotiations with Russia, not with Vladimir Putin, but only with another president of the Russian Federation. The Kremlin has replied that negotiations with Ukraine will have to wait for a change in the stance taken by the current President of the country, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, or for his successor.
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