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U.S., UN Denounce Russia's Planned Annexation Ceremony Just Days After 'Sham' Referendums
By RFE/RL September 29, 2022
The United States and the United Nations have strongly denounced Russia's plans to hold an annexation ceremony on September 30 following referendums in four Ukrainian regions that Western countries said were a "sham" but that Moscow-installed officials in the regions said showed overwhelmingly support for joining Russia.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States "does not, and will never, recognize the legitimacy or outcome of these sham referenda or Russia's purported annexation of Ukrainian territory," while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said annexation would mark a "dangerous escalation" that would jeopardize the prospects for peace.
Blnken said the referendums were "a futile effort to mask what amounts to a further attempt at a land grab in Ukraine," adding in a statement that the results "were orchestrated in Moscow and do not reflect the will of the people of Ukraine."
He said Russia forced much of the population of areas it has seized to flee and then compelled the Ukrainian citizens who remained "to cast ballots at gunpoint, in fear for their safety, and the safety of their loved ones."
Guterres said any decision to proceed with the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya regions of Ukraine "would have no legal value and deserves to be condemned."
The annexations "will prolong the dramatic impacts on the global economy, especially in developing countries, and hinder our ability to deliver life-saving aid across Ukraine and beyond," Guterres said.
The Kremlin announced earlier it will move to seize the territories through the signing of documents on "the accession of new territories into the Russian Federation."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on September 29 that a signing ceremony involving President Vladimir Putin and Moscow-imposed leaders from the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya would take place at 3 p.m. Moscow time "on agreements on the accession of new territories into the Russian Federation."
Putin will sign accession documents in an ornate Kremlin hall and deliver a speech, Peskov said. A pop concert will be held on Red Square, where a stage with giant video screens has been set up and where billboards proclaim "Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson -- Russia!"
The announcement prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to call an emergency meeting of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council on September 30, presidential spokesman Serhiy Nikiforov said on Facebook. The agenda and other details will be announced later, Nikiforov added.
Zelenskiy promised a "very harsh" response to the annexation, which he previously said destroyed any chance of reviving peace talks.
He called the votes on annexation held on September 23-27 "worthless" and said the territorial integrity of Ukraine will be restored.
The statement came after Zelenskiy's office said he spoke by phone with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and stressed the need for a firm reaction from the world's leading countries to the Kremlin's recognition of "pseudo-referendums," the website of the president's office said.
The votes were held amid claims by some local officials that voters have been threatened and coerced to vote. Election officials brought ballot boxes house-to-house, in many cases accompanied by armed Russian troops.
The four regions form a crucial land connection for the Kremlin between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014 and is otherwise only connected to the mainland by a bridge.
The Kremlin's move was announced just hours after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said work was under way on a new package of measures designed "to make the Kremlin pay" for escalating the conflict in Ukraine.
"We do not accept the sham referenda nor any kind of annexation in Ukraine, and we are determined to make the Kremlin pay the price for this further escalation," she told reporters in Brussels.
The proposed eighth sanctions package includes further import bans on Russian products that are meant to deprive Moscow of an additional 7 billion euros ($6.7 billion) in revenues.
The White House, meanwhile, said the United States will "never" recognize Russian attempts to annex parts of Ukraine and is preparing new economic sanctions on Moscow that will impose a "severe economic cost on Russia when they move forward with annexation."
"We will never recognize these illegal and illegitimate attempts at annexation," spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on September 28.
"We will work with our allies and partners to impose additional economic costs on Russia and individuals and entities inside and outside of Russia."
The EU will fully ban imports from Russia of steel and steel products, pulp and paper, machinery and appliances not yet covered by existing sanctions, intermediate chemicals, plastics, and cigarettes, according to an EU diplomat.
The sanctions would also ban the export of EU of goods used in aviation, such as tires and brakes, and electrical components including certain semiconductors and less sophisticated components than those already banned, the diplomat added.
In addition, the diplomat said the proposal also aims to ban the export of specific goods that can be used for torture.
The sanctions package will lay the legal basis for an oil price cap and ban EU citizens from sitting on governing bodies of Russian state-owned companies, von der Leyen said.
The new sanctions also would include restrictions on 37 individuals and companies that are engaged in organizing referendums.
This would include deputy ministers, celebrities, musicians, and people involved in spreading disinformation.
The proposal has been presented to the EU ambassadors of the 27 member countries, who are scheduled to discuss it on September 30. They will have to overcome differences in order to reach the required unanimity.
Copyright (c) 2022. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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