Ukraine bottles up Russian troops as Putin celebrates referendum results with Red Square party
Vladimir Putin announces the results of the referendum denounced around the world as a sham and travesty. Photo: AP
President Vladimir Putin’s celebration to proclaim his annexation of seized land has been overshadowed by stunning Ukraine advances that have trapped hundreds of Russian troops in a key base. .
The pro-Russian leader in Ukraine’s Donetsk province acknowledged his forces had lost full control of Yampil and Dobryshev, villages north and east of the city of Lyman, leaving Moscow’s main garrison in northern Donetsk “half-encircled”.
The Ukrainian army was “trying at all costs to spoil our historic events”, Denis Pushilin said, referring to an annexation ceremony he was due to attend later on Friday with Putin at the Kremlin
At the ceremony Putin announced “four new regions” were now part of Russia as he outlined the annexation of lands that Moscow’s forces have partially seized.
In his speech Putin urged Ukraine to sit down for talks but warned that Moscow would not give up the newly incorporated regions.
Convoy carnage
Russia declared the annexations after holding what it called referendums in occupied areas of Ukraine. Western governments and Kyiv say the votes breach international law and are coercive and unrepresentative.
Elsewhere, missiles tore through a convoy of civilian cars preparing to cross from Ukrainian-held territory into the Russian-occupied zone, killing at least 23 civilians.
The convoy was stopped cold by the missile strike, which left dozens dead. Photo: AP
Ukrainian officials called it a deliberate Russian attempt to sever the last links across the front. Moscow blamed Kyiv.
Putin presided over the Kremlin ceremony followed by a Red Square pop concert to celebrate Europe’s biggest territorial annexation since Hitler.
‘Lyman is surrounded!’
But the event looked likely to be overshadowed by the fall of Lyman, which would signal the collapse of Russian forces in northern Donetsk and open the way for Kyiv to assault deep into Russian-held territory.
Oleksiy Goncharenko, a high profile Ukrainian lawmaker, tweeted: “Lyman is surrounded! The Ukrainian army is already in Yampil. The Russian army is trying to escape.”
Even pro-Russian military bloggers reported Ukrainian forces had all but surrounded thousands of Russian troops, cutting off their escape. Pushilin said one road to Lyman was still open, but acknowledged it was now under Ukrainian artillery fire.
Friday’s missile attack in Zaporizhzhia came amid other attacks on Friday hitting civilian targets in Ukrainian-held territory along the breadth of the frontline.
The convoy of cars was assembling at a car park to try to cross into Russian-held territory near Zaporizhzhia, the Ukrainian-held capital of a region Moscow claims to be annexing.
A crater had been gouged in the ground near two lines of vehicles. The impact had sprayed shrapnel across cars packed with belongings, blankets and suitcase. Reuters saw around a dozen bodies.
“So far, 23 dead and 28 wounded. All civilians,” Zaporizhzhia regional governor Oleksandr Starukh wrote on Telegram. “The occupiers struck defenceless Ukrainians. This is another terrorist attack by a terrorist country.”
‘Dangerous escalation’
Russia’s annexation of the Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, held after what the West denounces as phoney referendums staged at gunpoint, has been condemned in the West and beyond.
UN chief Antonio Guterres called it a “dangerous escalation” and a violation of the United Nations charter.
“It can still be stopped. But to stop it we have to stop that person in Russia who wants war more than life. Your lives, citizens of Russia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a Thursday evening address.
Since his troops were forced to flee from Ukraine’s Kharkiv province this month, Putin has chosen to escalate the war. Last week he ordered the call-up of hundreds of thousands of reservists, and threatened to use nuclear weapons if Russia is attacked.
On Friday the Kremlin repeated its assertion that any attacks on territory it is now annexing would be attacks on Russia itself. Ukraine has said it will take back all its territory.
On the eve of the annexation ceremony Putin said that “all mistakes” made in his military call-up should be corrected, his first public acknowledgment of problems in the mass round-up of hundreds of thousands of Russian men since last week.
Tens of thousands of men have fled Russia to escape the call-up. Western countries say Moscow is rushing unprepared troops to the frontlines with little or no training and inadequate equipment.
-AAP
