 |
| Photo Credit: AP. |
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed laws formally absorbing four Ukrainian regions into Russia, even as its military struggles to control the territory that was illegally annexed.
The
documents finalizing the annexation, carried out in defiance of international
laws, were published on a Russian government website on Wednesday morning.
Earlier this
week, both houses of the Russian parliament ratified treaties making the
Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions part of Russia. That
followed Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums” in the four regions that Ukraine
and the West have rejected as a sham.
On the
ground, Moscow’s war in Ukraine has entered a new, more dangerous phase. Russia
faces mounting setbacks, with Ukrainian forces retaking more and more land in
the east and in the south — the very regions Moscow has pushed to annex.
The borders
of the territories Russia is claiming still remain unclear, but the Kremlin has
vowed to defend Russia’s territory — the newly absorbed regions too — with any
means at its disposal, including nuclear weapons.
Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the annexation by announcing a
fast-track application to join NATO and formally ruling out talks with Russia.
Zelenskyy’s decree, released Tuesday, declares that holding negotiations with
Putin has become impossible after his decision to take over the four regions of
Ukraine.
The head of
Zelenskyy’s office, Andriy Yermak, wrote on his Telegram channel shortly after
Putin signed the annexation that “the worthless decisions of the terrorist
country (Russia) are not worth the paper they are signed on.
“A
collective insane asylum can continue to live in a fictional world,” he added.
Kyiv’s
military said Wednesday they have recaptured more villages in the southern
Kherson region as a part of their massive counteroffensive effort. Operational
Command South said that the Ukrainian flag has been raised above seven villages
previously occupied by the Russians.
Military
hospitals are full of wounded Russian soldiers, and Russian military medics
lack medicaments, wrote Deputy Head of Kherson regional administration Yurii
Sobolevskyi on Telegram. After the condition of Russian soldiers stabilizes,
they are sent for further treatment in Crimea. “Not everyone arrives,” he wrote.
On the
battlefield on Wednesday morning, multiple explosions rocked Bila Tserkva,
setting off fires at what were described as infrastructure facilities in the
city to the south of the capital Kyiv, regional leader Oleksiy Kuleba said on
Telegram.
Early
indications are that the city was attacked by so-called kamikaze or suicide
drones, he said.
Bila Tserkva
is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Kyiv.
Russia has
increasingly been using suicide drones in recent weeks, posing a new challenge
to Ukrainian defenses. The unmanned vehicles can stay aloft for long periods of
time before diving into their targets and detonating their payload at the last
moment.
Many of the
earlier attacks by the Iranian-made drones happened in the south of the country
and not near the capital, which hasn’t been targeted for weeks.
In a later
post, Kuleba said that a total of six Shahed-136 drones struck the city, one of
the largest in the region after Kyiv itself. One person was wounded in the
attacks.
Dozens of
rescue workers were on the scene and still working to extinguish the fires
hours after the attacks were reported, he said.
Elsewhere in
Ukraine, at least five civilians have been killed and eight others have been
wounded by the latest Russian shelling, according to the country’s presidential
office.
In the
Donetsk region, the Russian forces shelled eight towns and villages. In
Sviatohirsk, which was reclaimed by Ukrainian forces, a burial ground for
civilians was found and bodies of four civilians were discovered, according to
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko.
Follow AP’s
coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine