Global denouncement for Kremlin’s annexation
Newslooks- KIYV, Ukraine (AP)
WASHINGTON- President Joe Biden is denouncing the referendums underpinning Russia’s planned annexation of four Ukrainian regions as a “sham” and vows that the United States will never recognize the land as Russian territory.
Speaking Thursday to Pacific island leaders in Washington, Biden said: “The so-called referenda was a sham, an absolute sham. The results were manufactured in Moscow.”
He called the hastily arranged election a “flagrant, flagrant violation of the U.N. charter.”
Biden commented a day after his administration said it has concluded that Moscow falsified results of the referendums and forced people to cast ballots under duress.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. top diplomat says Washington will never recognize Russia’s planned annexation of Ukrainian territory or the legitimacy of the Moscow-orchestrated referendums that amount to a “further attempt at a land grab.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Thursday the referendums in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia don’t reflect the will of the people and are an illegitimate spectacle carried out by Russia’s “proxies” in violation of international law.
Blinken said the referendums on joining Russia are “an affront to the principles of international peace and security” and accused Moscow of compelling Ukrainian citizens who didn’t flee to “cast ballots at gunpoint, in fear of their safety and the safety of their loved ones.”
He reiterated President Joe Biden’s pledge that the U.S. will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes” and that it would continue to assist the country, along with its allies, “in its fight to defend its territory against Russian aggression.”
A Washington-based think tank says Ukrainian soldiers continue to advance around a key northeastern city occupied by Russian forces and may soon encircle it entirely.
The Institute for the Study of War, citing Russian reports, said Thursday that Ukrainian forces have taken more villages around Lyman, a city some 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Lyman had been a key node in Russia’s front-line operations in the region before Ukrainian forces retook vast swathes of territory in the northeast earlier this month.
The institute said a possible collapse of the Lyman pocket would allow Ukrainian troops to “threaten Russian positions along the western Luhansk” region.
The institute suggested additional Russian losses would further erode morale amid a call-up of hundreds of thousands of men — the country’s first since World War II.
PODGORICA, Montenegro — Montenegro ordered six Russian diplomats to leave the country, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
In a short statement published on Twitter, the ministry said the diplomats were asked to leave over “breaches of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.” It did not elaborate.
Montenegro was once considered a strong Russian ally, but in 2017 it joined NATO over strong opposition from Moscow. It has also joined Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has put Montenegro and most other European nations on its list of “enemy states” for acting against Kremlin’s interests.
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to “give negotiations another chance” and to take steps aimed at reducing tensions and leading to “more positive developments.
A statement from Erdogan’s office said Thursday that the Turkish leader renewed an offer to Putin during a telephone conversation for Turkey to act as a mediator between Moscow and Kyiv.
Erdogan also called for the extension of a UN and Turkish-negotiated deal that allows Ukraine to export millions of tons of grain through the Black Sea. The deal is scheduled to expire in November.
NATO-member Turkey has retaining its close ties with both Moscow and Kyiv.
UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations chief says Russia’s planned annexation of four Ukrainian regions will be a “dangerous escalation” that flouts the U.N. Charter and will have “no legal value.”
In unusually strong and blunt language, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Thursday that any annexation “stands against everything the international community is meant to stand for,” and “must not be accepted.”
The Kremlin announced that a ceremony will be held Friday to launch the process of annexing the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Guterres said “the so-called `referenda’” can’t be called “a genuine expression of the popular will” because they were conducted during armed conflict in areas under Russian occupation, and outside Ukraine’s legal and constitutional framework.
He reiterated an Oct. 24, 1970 General Assembly declaration which has been repeatedly cited by the International Court of Justice, that “no territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal.” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres conveyed this message to Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia during a meeting on Wednesday.
European Union- European leaders have denounced Moscow’s announcement that it will incorporate Ukraine’s occupied four regions following the Kremlin-orchestrated referendums on joining Russia, pledging that they will never recognize the move.
Czech Republic Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky whose country holds the rotating EU presidency rejected as “absolutely unacceptable” what he called the “one-sided annexation” that was the process of a “fully falsified process with no legitimacy.”
Speaking on Czech public television Thursday, Lipansky dismissed the referendums as “a theater play” and that the four regions remain Ukrainian territory.
According to a statement from his office Thursday, Italian Premier Mario Draghi has told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a phone call that Italy will not recognize the illegal referendums.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen posted on Twitter that his country “will never recognize any annexation attempt.”
KYIV — Moscow has confirmed it will formally annex parts of Ukraine where occupied areas held Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums” on joining Russia that the Ukrainian government and the West have denounced as illegal and rigged.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend a ceremony in the Kremlin on Friday when four regions of Ukraine will be officially folded into Russia.
The official annexation was widely expected following the votes that wrapped up on Tuesday in the areas under Russian occupation in Ukraine and after Moscow claimed residents overwhelmingly supported for their areas to formally become part of Russia.
BERLIN — German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Thursday dismissed the Kremlin-orchestrated referendums in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine as a “sham.”
Baerbock told a news conference in the German capital that people are being taken “under threats and sometimes even (at) gunpoint” to drop their ballots in transparent boxes.
She denounced the vote as a “dictated peace” that’s contrary to free and fair elections and warned that no citizen is either free or safe in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territories as long as “this Russian diktat” prevails there.
KYIV — Ukraine’s presidential office says that at least eight civilians have been killed and 16 others have been wounded as a result of Russian artillery, missile and rocket attacks over the past 24 hours.
The office said Thursday casualties include two adults and a child killed by a missile strike on the city of Dnipro Wednesday. The attack injured five – including a 12 year-old girl pulled from the rubble – and damaged 60 houses, a street market and power lines.
Russian shelling killed five civilians and wounded four in the eastern Donetsk region.
The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk say 11 people have been wounded – one seriously – after four rockets hit the city. Oleksandr Honcharenko posted on Facebook that Thursday’s early morning attack damaged high-rise buildings and private homes.
Ukrainian military officials say the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has again been struck by a Russian missile. Officials said Thursday the Kh-59 missile struck a grain depot in Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday night.
