KYIV: The Kremlin says the four regions of Ukraine that held referendums on joining Russia will be incorporated into the country on Friday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend a ceremony at the Kremlin during which the regions will be officially folded into Russia.
Peskov told reporters on Thursday that the heads of the four regions where the five-day voting wrapped up on Tuesday will sign treaties to join Russia at the Kremlin’s St. George’s Hall.
Ukraine and the West have denounced the votes as a sham.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS:
— US: Focus new Russia sanctions on oil revenue, arms supplies
— Europe ramps up energy security after suspected sabotage
— Moscow tries to draft fleeing Russian men at the borders
— Ukrainian activist among winners of ‘Alternative Nobel’
— Agency: joining NATO makes Finland a target for Russian ops
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
BERLIN: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Thursday dismissed the Kremlin-orchestrated referendums in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine as a “sham.”
Baerbock told a news conference in the German capital that people are being taken “under threats and sometimes even (at) gunpoint” to drop their ballots in transparent boxes.
She denounced the vote as a “dictated peace” that’s contrary to free and fair elections and warned that no citizen is either free or safe in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territories as long as “this Russian diktat” prevails there.
KYIV: Ukraine’s presidential office says that at least eight civilians have been killed and 16 others have been wounded by the latest Russian shelling.
The office said Thursday casualties include two adults and a child killed by a missile strike on the city of Dnipro Wednesday.
The attack injured five - including a 12-year-old girl pulled from the rubble - and damaged 60 houses, a street market and power lines.
Russian shelling also hit Nikopol across the Dnieper River from the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
In the eastern Donetsk region, Russian artillery barrages killed five civilians and wounded four.
Meanwhile, authorities in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk say 11 people have been wounded - one seriously - after four rockets hit the city. Thursday's early morning attack damaged high-rise buildings and private homes.