- Moscow issued a warning in response to Russian threats
- While Ukraine claims bombing is continue, Zelenskiy proclaims victory in the fight.
- In Dagestan, police and anti-Russian mobilization demonstrators fight.
KYIV – The United States (US) has warned of “catastrophic implications” if Russia deploys nuclear weapons in Ukraine, following Russia’s foreign minister’s warning that territory hosting hotly contested referendums would get full security in the case of Moscow’s takeover of such regions.
On the third day, four eastern Ukrainian districts voted to absorb land captured by Russia by force. The Russian parliament might legally annex the land within a few days.
Moscow may portray efforts to retake Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia as strikes on Russia, delivering a warning to Kyiv and its Western allies.
According to US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Russian authorities have been warned of the “catastrophic ramifications” of using nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Russia would face disastrous consequences if it crossed this line “Sullivan stated this on the NBC television show “Meet the Press.” “The United States will respond quickly.
Following President Vladimir Putin’s hardly veiled nuclear threat on Wednesday that Russia will use any measures necessary to maintain its territory, the United States issued its most recent warning.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the point more explicitly at a news conference on Saturday, following his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where he repeated Moscow’s fabrications used to justify the invasion, including the fact that the duly elected government in Kyiv had been overthrown and replaced with neo-Nazis.
When asked if Russia would be justified in using nuclear weapons to defend annexations, Lavrov stated that all Russian territory, even places that may one day be “further entrenched” in the Russian constitution, was under “full state protection.”
Liz Truss, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, advised Britain and its allies not to take Putin’s threats seriously since he had made a strategic miscalculation by failing to anticipate the ferocity of the Western response.
Truss said in an interview with CNN that aired on Sunday, “We shouldn’t be listening to his saber-rattling and his phony threats.”
Instead, we must continue to impose sanctions on Russia while also supporting the Ukrainian people.
Threats from Bogus
Ukraine and its allies have condemned the referendums as a sham planned by Moscow to justify escalating the conflict and initiating a mobilization campaign in reaction to recent military losses.
According to unnamed sources, the Russian parliament may begin examining plans to incorporate the extra districts as early as Thursday. According to state-run RIA Novosti, Putin may address the assembly on Friday.
Russia, the referendums, which were swiftly organized after Ukraine retook terrain in a counteroffensive this month, allow inhabitants of those regions to express their views.
The regional governor of Luhansk stated that Russian-backed officials were going door to door with ballot boxes, and that individuals’ names would be deleted if they did not vote properly.
Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk, stated in an online interview that a lady was spotted pushing everyone to vote as she strolled down the street with what seemed to be a karaoke microphone.
Representatives of the occupying forces are carrying voting boxes as they visit each home. This is a secret ballot, after all.
In the four locations, Russian military control around 15% of Ukraine, or an area approximately the size of Portugal. It would roughly double the size of Crimea, which Russia claims it seized in 2014.
Each region still has sections under Ukrainian control, including around 40% of Donetsk and the province capital of Zaporizhzhia. A violent struggle raged throughout the whole front, particularly in Kherson and northern Donetsk.
The president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is determined that Ukraine would recapture its whole territory, stated on Sunday that some of the clashes had “positive consequences” for Kyiv.
This is our Kharkiv region, and this is Donetsk. He claimed in his nightly video comments that this is the Kherson region, as well as Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said on Facebook that Russia had fired four missiles, seven airstrikes, and 24 incidents of shelling on Ukrainian targets in the preceding 24 hours, targeting dozens of cities, including several in and near the Donetsk and Kherson areas.
Protests in Russia against the draught
On Wednesday, Putin issued Russia’s first military mobilization order since World War II. The measure sparked protests across Russia and drove many men of military age to flee.
Sunday, two of Russia’s most senior lawmakers addressed a number of mobilization concerns by pushing local officials to curb “excesses” that were inflaming the people as soon as possible.
According to the independent monitoring organization OVD-Info, almost 2,000 people have been imprisoned across Russia as a result of the drought protests. The rallies are among the first signs of discontent since the conflict began in Russia, where criticizing the battle is forbidden.
Police and protesters clashed in Dagestan, a Muslim-majority region of southern Russia. As a consequence, at least 100 individuals were imprisoned.
Zelenskiy acknowledged the demonstrators in his video message.
He stated that everyone who may be enrolled by this unlawful Russian mobilisation should continue fighting in order to prevent their children from being transported to their deaths.
We will not let you go alive if you come to take our children’s life, and I say this as a parent.
