After holding bogus referendums, Vladimir Putin has announced that the occupied portions of Ukraine are now a part of Russia and vowed to employ ‘all our forces’ to defend them as the war enters a deadly new phase.
In front of his cronies in Moscow, the Russian despot provided his own twisted interpretation of events, claiming that’millions of people’ in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia had ‘decided’ to become Russia’s vassals, and that he would accept their decision despite the fact that voting was conducted under duress and in the midst of a war.
He then reaffirmed his promise to employ ‘all forces’ to protect the ‘new territory,’ reigniting fears that, if his invasion fails, he may resort to Russia’s vast nuclear weapons.
Thousands of Russian forces are believed to be trapped in Lyman, in the Donetsk area, and the city is on the edge of surrendering, placing them at risk of being killed or captured within hours.
At least 25 civilians were killed and 28 others were injured when a Russian missile targeted a convoy of vehicles leaving the city of Zaporizhzhia into Russian-occupied territory, according to Ukrainian officials.
This morning, a missile attack on a humanitarian convoy leaving the Ukrainian-occupied city of Zaporizhzhia for nearby Russian territory resulted in several casualties.
Aerial footage depicts how a single missile exploded near the convoy, shredding the vehicles as individuals prepared to enter Russian-occupied area nearby to visit family and give aid.
A body rests beneath a sheet next to a humanitarian truck that was leaving the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia to distribute aid in nearby Russian-occupied territory.
A view of the cars from the missile crater reveals the path the shrapnel would have traveled before striking the vehicles and killing or injuring their occupants.
At least 25 civilians were killed when Russian missiles attacked a civilian convoy leaving the Ukrainian-occupied city of Zaporizhzhia for nearby Russian-occupied territory.
A body rests beneath a blanket in Zaporizhzhia, a city in southern Ukraine, after a Russian aircraft struck a humanitarian convoy heading for Russian-occupied territory.
Near Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian forces kneel close to the body of a civilian killed by a missile strike.
At least 25 people were killed and many injured in the early-morning missile attack, as emergency personnel and investigators examine the wreckage of vehicles left behind.
The missile attack occurred just hours before President Putin’s planned announcement that Zaporizhzhia and three other territories will be seized by Russia in order to ‘defend’ them.
A Ukrainian soldier inspects the wreckage of a van near the city of Zaporizhzhia that was torn by shrapnel after an early-morning missile attack.
Col. Mikhail Khodarenok, a military pundit, said Rossiya 1 TV, “We promise that our nuclear missile shield is fully operational and ready for prompt deployment.”
Presenter Olga Skabeyeva, sometimes known as Putin’s “Iron Doll,” responded: “In other words, the good news is that we are sure to destroy [the West] by the end of 2022…
Photos from Zaporizhzhia depicted a road littered with shattered automobiles and at least two bodies on the ground, with survivors sifting through the debris.
A witness reported seeing approximately 12 bodies, four of which were in automobiles, and a missile crater near two rows of vehicles at a car market.
The crash had flung earth pieces into the air and rained shrapnel over the automobiles. The windows of the vehicles, primarily automobiles and three vans, were shattered.
The cars were filled with personal effects, blankets, and luggage.
In one of them, a man’s body was leaning from the driver’s seat to the passenger’s seat with his left hand still gripping the steering wheel.
Oleksandr Starukh, the governor of Zaporizhzhia, posted on Telegram, “The enemy launched a rocket strike on a humanitarian convoy carrying civilians as it was leaving the regional center.”
People waited in line to depart towards the temporarily seized region, to pick up their family members, and to take away aid.
Rescuers, medical personnel, and all pertinent services are currently at the scene.
A pair of plastic sheets were put over the corpses of a woman and a young man in a green automobile in the car in front of them. Next to the young man in the rear seat was a dead cat.
Two dead lay in a white minivan in front of the automobile, which had shattered windows and shrapnel holes on its sides.
A Ukrainian police officer inspects the destroyed cars after Russian soldiers attacked a convoy carrying relief to Russian-occupied territory.
Ukraine claims that the vehicles were waiting at a checkpoint on their way out of Zaporizhzhia when Russia launched a salvo of missiles, one of which hit near the trucks and shattered them with shrapnel.
Russian soldiers targeted a convoy of trucks near the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, resulting in their destruction.
After a Russian rocket assault in Zaporizhzhia, police officers and medical personnel work near damaged cars.
Zaporizhzhia is located in southern Ukraine and is under the control of Kyiv’s military forces. However, Russian forces occupy surrounding land, which Putin plans to annex today in a speech.
Putin will preside over the signing of a treaty proclaiming the annexation of four regions of Ukraine – the breakaway People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – at an official ceremony in St. George’s Hall in the Grand Kremlin Palace, where marble plaques engraved in gold commemorate Russian military heroes.
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin presides over a Security Council meeting via video link.
People prepare for a performance on the Red Square in Moscow, with constructions reading “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Kherson, Russia” and the St. Basil’s Cathedral and Lenin Mausoleum in the backdrop.
A woman identified as Nataliya stated that she and her husband had traveled in Zaporizhzhia to visit their children.
“We were returning to my 90-year-old mother,” We have escaped harm. It’s a miracle,’ she exclaimed as she and her husband stood behind their automobile.
Russia denied responsibility for the attack and instead blamed Ukraine.
Putin is scheduled to deliver a major address at the Kremlin today in which he will announce his plan to annex seized territories of Ukraine.
In recent days, Russian-backed proxy administrations in four regions of Ukraine that are at least partially occupied by Russian soldiers – Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia – have conducted referendums on the topic.
Friday, September 30th, Russian forces attacked the Dnipro region of Ukraine, resulting in the destruction of vehicles in a parking lot.
This morning, Russia bombarded Ukrainian cities with missiles, rockets, and suicide drones. Images depict a bus fleet damaged by a missile strike on Dnipro.
They allege that the vote was conducted under gunpoint and that overwhelming majorities favored joining the “motherland.”
Ukraine and its allies have decried the elections as a fraud and stated that they will never recognize the results, but the move nonetheless signifies a turning point in the conflict.
Starting today, Putin will be able to convince his own people that Ukrainian efforts to liberate these regions are in fact Russian attacks.
If the public believed the deception, he would be able to intensify the conflict in response, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons.
Putin himself threatened to use nuclear weapons in a speech last week, and his friends, including the head of the security council, Dmitry Medvedev, have repeated the threat numerous times since.
The Kremlin tyrant last night signed laws recognizing Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the country’s south and east as autonomous nations from Volodymyr Zelensky’s Government – a prelude to Putin’s insane plan to illegally absorb 15 percent of Ukrainian territory into the Russian Federation.
Along with armed Russian police, election officials carrying a clear ballot box are allowed enter an apartment building in seized Ukraine (right)
Putin and his predecessors are prohibited by a 2020 amendment to the Russian constitution from ceding any territory once obtained, meaning that if the annexation is accomplished today, it will be irreversible unless Ukraine successfully recaptures the stolen area. Even a partial pullout as part of a peace agreement with Kiev in the future will become untenable.
Putin will preside over the signing of a treaty proclaiming the annexation of four regions of Ukraine – the breakaway People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – at an official ceremony in St. George’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace, where marble plaques engraved in gold commemorate Russian military heroes.
The Russian annexation will be followed by planned celebratory concerts and rallies in the captured territory and Moscow’s Red Square, where Putin is scheduled to explain why Ukraine has no right to exist independently.
The staged event follows a fraudulent five-day vote in Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk, and Luhansk that was completely manipulated in favor of joining Putin’s Russia. Up to 99 percent of the seized regions, according to Moscow’s proxies, were in favor of joining. However, Ukraine and Western nations characterized these elections as fraudulent, illegitimate, and conducted under threat of force.
The puppet parliament of Russia, the Duma, is scheduled to rubber stamp the measure next week. It is a perfect duplicate of Moscow’s strategy in 2014, when it staged a sham referendum in Crimea as an excuse to seize the Ukrainian peninsula.
Putin is in a precarious position when he annexes Crimea. After months of grinding, attritional fighting, Ukraine took the initiative this month by routing Russian forces in the Kharkiv region’s northeast.
And Putin authorized an unpopular partial mobilization last week, causing thousands of men of combat age to abandon the country. Even ardent Kremlin friends have criticized the disorganized manner of the call-up, and Putin himself stated Wednesday that “any errors must be rectified.”
Kyiv stated that the annexation votes will not prevent its armed forces from attempting to reclaim illegally seized territory, threatening a “harsh” retaliation. Russia, for its part, undertakes to defend all of its territory, including newly seized regions, by any means necessary, including nuclear weapons.
Western allies of Ukraine have referred to the staged referendums on whether to live under Russian control as a “land grab” based on deception.
They claim that some individuals were compelled to vote at gunpoint in an election without independent observers on a territory from which thousands of residents have fled or been forcibly deported.