Putin will ratify the border change on Friday, a decision that will escalate the war and could even lead to the use of nuclear weapons if Ukraine continues to attack territory Moscow now considers Russian.
Now the 4 former regions of Ukraine will be subject to Russia’s nuclear strategic doctrine. Announcing referendums in Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions last week, Putin warned that he would respond with nuclear weapons if the national security of Russia, of which the four former regions will be a part from tomorrow, is threatened of Ukraine.
Afterwards, B. Putin is expected to deliver an ultimatum and demand that the Ukrainian forces withdraw from Donetsk, Zaporizhia as well as stop the attacks on Kherson and Donbass. If the Ukrainians continue, then the specter of a nuclear strike looms dangerously close.
Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson constitute an area of over 90,000 square kilometers and 15% of the territory of the total area of Ukraine. In other words, the territory of the regions incorporated by Putin is equal to the size of Hungary or Portugal and includes about 4 million Russian speakers.
This is the largest annexation of European territory since World War II.
From Lugansk alone, Russia gets five coal mines of the companies Lisichanskugol Mining and Chemical Combine, the Lisichansky oil refinery, the Matrosskaya mine, the rubber factory, from the other regions nuclear plants, hydroelectric dams, the ports in Azov, Mariupol and many others .
Now if Russia goes ahead and captures Kharkiv and Odessa, Ukraine will have lost 95% of its GDP.
“We are at a point of no return. The annexation decision binds Putin to defend it in perpetuity and to occupy militarily the territories that while he incorporates he has not brought under his control. It still prevents him from returning land to Ukraine as part of a settlement. And it increases the risk of escalation,” emphasizes Shashank Joshi of the Economist.
Guardian journalist Pjotr Sauer writes:
“Point of no return and a sign that the war will be prolonged. The Kremlin has not yet put its economy on a war footing, which will be easier to enforce when you present the war as a defensive battle for survival.”
Tomorrow at 15.00 Moscow time the signatures
Russian state news agency Tass quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that the signing ceremony of the agreements in the Russian Federation will take place on Friday at 15:00 Moscow time.
The Russian president will hold the signing ceremony in the Kremlin and is then expected to deliver a speech and meet with Moscow-appointed administrators of Ukrainian regions, Peskov said.
The Kremlin clarified that the agreements will also be signed with the four regions where referendums were held on the issue of joining the Russian Federation: Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.
A “big speech” by the President of Russia is also expected, Peskov added.
State Duma deputies have already received invitations to the Kremlin for an event with the participation of President Vladimir Putin.
One of the invited MPs, MP of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Denis Parfionov, named the date and time of this event.
“State Duma deputies were sent an invitation to the Kremlin on September 30, where an event with the participation of Russian President V. Putin will begin at 15:00,” Parfenov wrote on Telegram.
Today, September 29, Vladimir Putin will hold an operational meeting with the Russian Security Council, the Kremlin announced.
Referendums, held over four days in those four regions, concluded on Tuesday and results reported by Russian state media showed overwhelming support for joining Russia.
On Wednesday, the Russian administrations of the four Ukrainian provinces formally asked Putin to integrate them into Russia.
In Moscow the leaders of the four regions
Already, Moscow-appointed officials in the regions of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, Zaporizhia and Kherson, southern Ukraine, have arrived in Moscow since last night. In fact, they addressed Putin with “official” requests in this direction.”
“I am in Moscow”, the Russian-appointed head of the Luhansk region, in eastern Ukraine, Leonid Pashechnik, announced today to the Russian news agency TASS.
An indication of the Kremlin’s intention to mark the occasion are the celebrations, which are also scheduled to take place tomorrow, Friday, in Moscow, with the municipal authorities of the Russian capital announcing the closure of streets in the city center, mainly around the iconic Red Square Square, where the platform stood.
October is a critical month: World War III may begin
At the same time, Russian media note:
On September 21, along with Vladimir Putin’s address to the nation and the announcement of a partial military mobilization, most Russians found themselves in a new reality.
Earlier, the President of Serbia, speaking on September 20 at the UN General Assembly, warned the whole world that the special operation to protect Donbass could expand into a larger military conflict. According to him, the world is on the brink of World War III.
It is symbolic that the leader of Serbia is talking about this. We all remember how the First World War began. Then, too, no one believed that within a month of the assassination in Sarajevo of the unfortunate Archduke Ferdinand and his wife by a 19-year-old bomber, most of the countries of the Old and New Worlds would be plunged into the abyss of a world war that claimed life to 18 million people and ended with the collapse of four empires that participated in it.
The only mistake the Serbian president is making is that he thinks the world is on the brink of World War III, when it is already underway. And it started on February 28th. Either we will defeat the collective West, or we won’t and Russia will disintegrate into 20 hostile, warring quasi-states and all our untold natural wealth will fall into their hands.
This is the US plan.
Putin made his first move on September 23-27, holding referendums in four Ukrainian regions (already former regions of the former Ukraine). .
At the same time, we should not forget that the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China begins on October 16, where President Xi should be ordered to extend his term with an eye on Taiwan.
Xi wants to stay in office and restore his reputation, which was destroyed by crazy grandma Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. For the Chinese, fame (loss of face – mianzi) is more important than life, because it is its meaning.
Do you think what has been done with the SP-1 and SP-2 pipelines is already too much? The countdown will continue with various blows…
October is a very decisive month for developments. It may also be the beginning of a Third World War,” the Russians conclude.
Russia took control of almost all of Ukraine’s GDP
Ukrainian President V. Zelensky’s strategy to defend territories at any cost was disastrous for Kyiv. Retired American colonel Douglas McGregor compared the actions of the Ukrainian leadership to what the Wehrmacht of the Third Reich did at the request of Adolf Hitler on the territory of the USSR during World War II.
A senior TAC researcher notes that the Ukrainian leader, possibly on the advice of his American and British military advisers, decided to hold positions in the east of the country at all costs. As a result, the Armed Forces of Ukraine turned the cities into fortified areas, calling them “the last frontier”.
Kyiv rejected the withdrawal of forces and resources elsewhere to save the lives of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers. It is in the east that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and their allies from the Donbass are dismantling the most combat-ready formations of the Ukrainian army. However, this is not yet the biggest problem for Ukraine.
“Russia already controls the land that produces 85% (according to other sources 60-70%) of Ukraine’s GDP. So there is simply no need for the Russians to move further west. No doubt Moscow will complete its work in Donbas and then turn its attention to Odesa, which saw the monstrous atrocities of May 2014
In his opinion, Moscow is in no hurry. The Russians act methodically and systematically. The Ukrainian army is losing more and more forces with each counterattack.
China, Saudi Arabia and India buy Russian oil for rubles. Sanctions hit America’s European allies, not Russia. The coming winter is likely to change the political landscape of Europe more than any move by Moscow, ” he stressed.
