1. Western leaders deplore ‘sham’ referendum effects
Ukraine and its western allies have once more slammed Russian-led referendums to annex portions of Ukraine as “illegitimate” and a “sham”.
Pro-Russian officers in 4 areas of southeastern Ukraine declared on Tuesday that electorate had selected to sign up for Russia. Widely-circulated photographs on social media confirmed armed squaddies shifting door-to-door to implement the vote.
Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia in combination make up round 15% of Ukrainian territory — kind of the similar measurement as Portugal.
Many international locations have said that they wouldn’t recognise the result of the hastily-organised referendums of annexation.
The European Union’s overseas coverage leader Josep Borrell has denounced the annexation “referendums” as “illegal” polls with “manipulated” effects.
“Fictitious referendums. Fictitious results. We do not recognise them,” added European Council President Charles Michel.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg additionally denounced the “sham referendums” as “a new escalation of Putin’s war”.
Ukraine stated on Wednesday that Russian-staged votes have been “null and worthless”, and that Kyiv would press on with its struggle efforts.
“Forcing people in these territories to fill out some papers at the barrel of a gun is yet another Russian crime in the course of its aggression against Ukraine,” the Ukrainian overseas ministry stated in a commentary.
“Moscow’s attempts to create new separation lines or weaken international support for Ukraine are doomed to fail,” it added.
Kyiv has also known as on its global companions to impose “tough new sanctions” on Moscow and supply Ukraine with extra army support.
The West’s monetary sanctions on Moscow are already essentially the most serious imposed towards a big economic system in trendy historical past.
The United States and Canada have been additionally making ready a brand new spherical of sanctions towards Russia, on most sensible of a $1.1 billion (€1.15 billion) US hands package deal for Ukraine.
2. ‘Nothing to discuss with this president of Russia,’ says Zelenskyy
Ukraine has many times warned that the Russian annexation of Ukrainian territories would smash any likelihood of peace talks, seven months after the struggle started.
The votes reflected a referendum in Crimea after Russia seized the southern peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
“This farce in the occupied territories cannot even be called an imitation of a referendum,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in his nightly video cope with on Tuesday.
In an previous cope with to the UN Security Council, Zelenskyy described the votes as a “modern world crime”.
“Any annexation in the modern world is a crime, a crime against all states that consider the inviolability of border to be vital for themselves,” Zelenskyy stated.
“There is nothing to talk about with this president of Russia,” he added.
Kyiv has said that Ukrainians who helped organise the referendums would face treason fees and no less than 5 years in prison.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had reported that Moscow was once in a position to renew negotiations with Ukraine with “new conditions” for a ceasefire.
But following the annexation referendums, Moscow once more used the specter of nuclear guns to shield the “territorial integrity” of Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated he’ll by no means abandon the citizens of those spaces and is prone to admit the areas into the rustic.
And Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, informed Tuesday’s assembly that the referendums have been performed transparently and in step with electoral norms.
The subsequent step for annexation is for the Russian parliament to vote on a treaty “in the coming days” to officially combine the 4 areas into Russian territory.
Valentina Matviyenko, head of the higher area of the Russian parliament, stated that it would believe thematter on October 4, 3 days sooner than Putin celebrates his seventieth birthday.
3. EU suspects ‘sabotage’ over Nord Stream leaks in Baltic Sea
The European Union has warned towards any assault on its power infrastructure after 3 leaks have been reported on Nord Stream pipelines within the Baltic Sea.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had steered that the incidents have been “an act of sabotage”.
Swedish seismologists have said that the odd gasoline leaks from the pipelines have been brought about via explosions and now not earthquakes or herbal landslides.
“Any deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united response,” Borrell stated on Wednesday.
“All available information indicates those leaks are the result of a deliberate act,” he wired.
“We will support any investigation to get to the bottom of what happened and why, and we will take further steps to increase our energy security resilience.”
NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg has additionally expressed worry in regards to the leaks at the two pipelines and mentioned the topic with Danish Defence Minister Morten Bødskov on Wednesday.
The harm to the 2 Nord Stream pipelines got here at the identical day because the inauguration of the brand new Baltic Pipe between Norway and Poland, which can scale back Europeans’ dependence on Russian gasoline.
There is explanation why to be involved in regards to the safety scenario within the Baltic Sea area,” Bødskov warned in a statement.
According to German magazine Der Spiegel, the US Central Intelligence Agency had warned Germany about possible attacks on gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea weeks ago.
4. Newly mobilised Russian reservists to train in Kaliningrad
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that newly mobilised reservists in the Kaliningrad region have started combat training.
The call-ups will take courses on how to operate and maintain military equipment, the ministry said in a post on Telegram.
Russia already has a significant military presence in Kaliningrad — an enclave between Poland and Lithuania — including nuclear-capable missiles, its Baltic fleet and tens of thousands of soldiers.
But the Institute for the Study of War has said that men being mobilised to enforce Russian lines in Ukraine are apparently receiving no training.
President Putin last week ordered Russia’s first “partial” military mobilisation since World War II, which could 300,000 more people sent to fight in Ukraine.
But the order has triggered an exodus of nearly 200,000 men from Russia, fueled anti-war protests and sparked violence at some military recruitment centres.
The European Union’s border agency Frontex says 66,000 Russian citizens entered the bloc from September 19 to September 25, a 30% increase over the preceding week.
Russian officials tried to intercept some of the fleeing reservists on one of the main exodus routes, issuing conscription notices on the Georgian border.
The Kremlin’s announcements about military training come as its troops continued to shell areas of Ukraine.
Authorities in the southern Ukrainian city of Nikopol say Russian strikes hit at least ten high-rise buildings overnight, as well as a school and some power lines.
Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said there were no immediate casualties reported from the attacks.
In Donetsk, Ukrainian officials also reported that Russian fire had killed five people and wounded ten others over the past 24 hours.
Kyiv’s military reported on Tuesday that 20 towns in the Zaporizhzhia region and 35 towns and villages in the Kherson region were also hit.
Meanwhile, the Russian separatist leader of Luhansk said three municipal gas workers were killed and one wounded by Ukrainian shelling in Brianka.
5. Poland and Bulgaria urge citizens to leave Russia
The governments of Bulgaria and Poland are urging any citizens that remain in Russia to leave urgently.
Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry has advised people to not travel to Russian territory or to consider leaving by any ” to be had manner of shipping”.
The Polish Foreign Ministry issued a similar statement, suspending flights to Russia and encouraging citizens to leave the country.
“In case of a drastic deterioration of the protection scenario, the closure of borders or different unexpected cases, evacuation might turn out considerably impeded and even not possible,” the ministry said, according to national media.
“We suggest that the electorate of the Republic of Poland who stay at the territory of the Russian Federation depart its territory the usage of the to be had business and personal manner.”
The warnings is also in anticipation of border crossings changing into a lot more tricky as routes out shut.
Poland’s overseas minister Zbigniew Rau has additionally said that NATO’s reaction to any Russian use of nuclear guns in Ukraine must be non-nuclear however “devastating”.
