Following a string of military setbacks for Ukraine, the Russian president is prepared to declare four Ukrainian areas to be a part of Russia.
On Friday, following allegedly staged referendums, Russian President Vladimir Putin will declare his country’s annexation of four regions of Ukraine, marking the largest territorial conquest in postwar Europe.
In a “great ascension” ceremony, Russia will assert political sovereignty over 15% of Ukraine, the largest nation on the continent, in the Georgievsky Hall of the Great Kremlin Palace.
A pop performance will then be held on Moscow’s renowned Red Square to commemorate the annexation of the four provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
The United States, Ukraine, and other countries have denounced this as a land grab and pledged to respond with sanctions.
Vedant Patel, a deputy spokeswoman for the State Department, stated at a briefing on Thursday that “all options remain on the table when it comes to putting penalties on Russia.”
When Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, Western governments, authorities, and academics openly regretted not taking more drastic action.
Few people in the West accept Russia’s current argument that it is only responding to a democratic decision made by residents of eastern and southern Ukraine seriously. Instead, many experts believe that Putin is escalating the conflict after suffering a string of humiliating defeats on the battlefield at the hands of Kyiv’s quick counteroffensive.
Putin announced the annexation, activated the military reserves, increased his nuclear threats against the West and Ukraine, and caused a large-scale migration of Russians to avoid the draft.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, addressed the nation directly on the eve of the ascension ceremony.
According to Zelenskyy, the annexation “can yet be stopped.” However, in order to stop it, we must stop that individual in Russia.
