The report said Ukrainian forces may soon encircle Lyman entirely, in what would be a major blow to Moscow’s war effort. The Institute for the Study of War, citing Russian reports, said Ukrainian forces have taken more villages around Lyman, a city 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. The Russian military is struggling with a chaotic mobilization of troops and trying to prevent fighting-age men from leaving the country, according to a Washington-based think-tank and the British intelligence reports. Reports of new shelling came as Russia appeared to lose more ground around the northeastern city of Lyman. Russian forces occupy the plant, which is Europe’s biggest nuclear power station, but Ukrainian technicians still are running it.Ī suspected landmine explosion on the perimeter fence Thursday that was likely triggered by wild animals damaged electrical lines, according to Ukraine’s national atomic power agency, Energoatom. More fighting near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant – Europe’s biggest – was another source of concern. “The rescuers have taken her from under the rubble, she was asleep when the Russian missile hit,” said local administrator Valentyn Reznichenko.Ī Russian rocket attack on Kramatorsk, a city in the eastern Donetsk region still held by Ukraine, wounded 11 people and inflicted damage on the city, Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said. A 12-year-old girl was pulled alive out of rubble after an attack on Dnipro, officials said. On the battlefront Thursday, Ukrainian authorities said Russian shelling killed at least eight civilians in the past 24 hours, including a child, and wounded scores of others. Putin and other Russian officials also have threatened to resort to nuclear weapons to protect Russian territory, including any annexed land. In response, tens of thousands of Russian men have left the country. Putin last week ordered a troop mobilization that the Russian defense minister said would put 300,000 reservists into active military duty. The votes and the Kremlin’s quick move to incorporate territory seized during Russia’s war in Ukraine came after a Ukrainian counteroffensive this month dealt Moscow’s forces heavy battlefield setbacks. As long as this Russian diktat prevails in the occupied territories of Ukraine, no citizen is safe. “This is the opposite of free and fair elections,” Baerbock said. “Under threats and sometimes even (at) gunpoint, people are being taken out of their homes or workplaces to vote in glass ballot boxes,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said at a conference in Berlin. Moscow-installed administrations in the four regions of southern and eastern Ukraine claimed Tuesday night that 93% of the ballots cast in the Zaporizhzhia region supported annexation, as did 87% in Kherson, 98% in Luhansk and 99% in Donetsk. Ukrainian officials said the military escorts also took down the names of residents who voted against annexation. Lipavsky described the pro-Russia referendums as “theater play” and insisted the regions remain “Ukrainian territory.”Īrmed Russian troops at went door-to-door with election officials to collect ballots in five days of voting that produced suspiciously high margins in favor of joining Russia. “We reject such one-sided annexation based on a fully falsified process with no legitimacy.” “It’s absolutely unacceptable,” said Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency. Ukraine’s supporters in the West have described the stage-managed referendums on living under Russian rule as a bald-faced land grab based on lies. The official annexation was widely expected following the votes that wrapped up Tuesday in the areas under Russian occupation and the administration of Moscow-installed officials. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called an emergency meeting of the National Security and Defense Council for Friday, apparently in response to the Russian move. Peskov said the pro-Moscow administrators of those regions would sign treaties to join Russia during the ceremony at the Kremlin’s St. Russia on Friday will formally annex parts of Ukraine where separation “referendums” received approval, the Kremlin’s spokesman said, confirming the expectations of Ukrainian and Western officials who have denounced the Moscow-managed votes as illegal, forced and rigged.įour regions of Ukraine - Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - will be folded into Russia during a Kremlin ceremony attended by President Vladimir Putin, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday. 2017 Parksville Qualicum Beach Discovery Guide.
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