The annexation marks perhaps the darkest moment in relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War, following a NATO warning Thursday that damage to two Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea was the result of “deliberate, reckless and irresponsible acts of sabotage.”

Workers fix a banner reading “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson — Russia!” installed in front of the State Historical Museum outside Red Square in central Moscow on Sept. 29.

By Robyn DixonSeptember 29, 2022 – Russian President Vladimir Putin will formally move Friday to seize four Ukrainian regions by signing documents that the Kremlin is calling “accession treaties.” The signing ceremony, to take place in the Grand Kremlin Palace, marks Putin’s attempt to annex the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, even though Russia does not fully control them militarily or politically.

The move, in defiance of stern international warnings including from President Biden, potentially slams the door on diplomacy for years to come and almost certainly assures further escalation of the war in Ukraine. Kyiv insists it will fight to reclaim all of its lands, and Western allies are promising to send more weapons and economic assistance.

In a forceful statement on Wednesday, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres denounced Russia for violating international law. Calling it a “moment of peril,” Guterres said: “The U.N. Charter is clear. Any annexation of a state’s territory by another state resulting from the threat or use of force is a violation of the Principles of the U.N. Charter and international law.”

After Russia orchestrated the referendums with implausible results claiming overwhelming support for annexation, Erdogan said the voting brought “troubles,” and he lamented that the conflict had not been resolved through diplomacy.

Erdogan was due to speak to Putin late Thursday, likely too late to persuade him to change course if that were ever possible. “These kinds of ventures strain the efforts for diplomacy and lead to the deepening of instability,” Erdogan said, referring to the staged referendums and the military mobilization.

Russia’s proxy leaders from the partially occupied regions traveled to Moscow on Wednesday ahead of the signing of the so-called accession treaties.

And in a sign of the hoopla in Moscow, the state-controlled Rossiya 24 news channel started broadcasting a countdown clock, showing the hours and minutes until Putin’s scheduled announcement at 3 p.m. local time (10 a.m. Eastern). Russia’s rubber-stamp parliament, meeting Monday and Tuesday, is certain to approve the treaties and then adopt amendments to the constitution to formalize the annexation, in a process mirroring that of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Adding a dash of patriotic theater to Friday’s proceedings, the Kremlin announced that a gala concert would be held in Red Square on Friday after the signing of the treaties.

The concert mimics a similar event in 2014 when Putin appeared onstage after Russia had seized Ukraine’s Crimea region. It was part of an effort to whip up public euphoria over reclaiming the peninsula, which a majority of Russians viewed as historically belonging to them.

The annexation of Crimea, a popular Russian holiday destination, propelled Putin’s approval rating to a record high 89 percent in 2015. But public sentiment is unlikely to be as strong for the takeover of the four new regions.

Multiple Russian setbacks in the war have exposed the poor shape of Russia’s military and left Putin more vulnerable than at any time in office. He has been criticized from the right by pro-war hawks furious over the military missteps as well as the bungled mobilization, and from the left by opponents of the war.

More than 200,000 Russians have fled the country in recent days to escape the partial mobilization.

A wave of newly mobilized Russian soldiers already arriving in Ukraine with relatively little preparation will probably not be enough for Moscow to launch offensives in the coming weeks to get full control of the regions it is annexing, according to military experts, but they may help Russia to hold territory through the winter.

Putin’s approval rating has fallen in the wake of his mobilization announcement, according to opinion survey results released Thursday by the Levada Center, an independent pollster. Given Russia’s authoritarian system, however, his rating remains at levels that would be the envy of any Western politician.

According to the new Levada poll, Putin’s approval rating fell to 77 percent from 83 percent the previous month, while his disapproval rating rose to 21 percent from 15 percent. (Putin’s ratings fell to their lowest point — 59 percent — in April 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.)

The new results nevertheless highlight the unpredictable consequences of the war for Putin, as he faces a protracted bleak period with tougher Western sanctions, long-term economic decline and likely increasing military casualties in Ukraine.

The annexation marks perhaps the darkest moment in relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War, following a NATO warning Thursday that damage to two Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea was the result of “deliberate, reckless and irresponsible acts of sabotage.”

“We, as Allies, have committed to prepare for, deter and defend against the coercive use of energy and other hybrid tactics by state and nonstate actors,” NATO said in a statement. “Any deliberate attack against Allies’ critical infrastructure would be met with a united and determined response.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Thursday stepped up Russian accusations over the apparent sabotage. She noted that the damage occurred in the waters of Denmark and Sweden, countries that she said were “stuffed” with American weapons and “under the control” of the CIA.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday the explosions that damaged the pipelines, causing massive leaks of natural gas, appeared to be “deliberate.”

“It’s very difficult to imagine that such a terrorist action could take place without the involvement of some state,” Peskov said.

Russian state-controlled media aired analysts and pundits saying that the attack could only have been carried out by the United States or Britain. Western analysts, meanwhile, said the sabotage was more likely to have been perpetrated by Russia.

Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, said it was “hard to think who else it could be.” The pipeline attack could be meant as “a general, darker warning about the vulnerability of all underwater pipes and cables should Russia want to inflict more disruption,” he added.

The pipeline damage could be also the Kremlin’s message to Europe that it would never again benefit from relatively low-priced Russia natural gas, or potentially a signal to Nordic countries that they would always be vulnerable to Russia, Freedman wrote in an emailed newsletter Wednesday.

The European Commission on Wednesday recommended an eighth package of sanctions on Russia, including a cap on oil prices, a ban on European nationals serving on the boards of Russian state-owned companies and new bans on exports of high-tech goods to Russia.

But the package still requires unanimous approval of all 27 European Union countries, and Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, cast doubt on the key measures when he said Thursday that Hungary would block any new energy sanctions.

The full ramifications of Putin’s annexation declaration are difficult to predict.

In one move, Russia is likely to declare the Sea of Azov to be an internal Russian sea. And Moscow could deploy special police troops to suppress partisan activity in the occupied areas. In some occupied areas, Kremlin proxies have already phased out Ukraine’s currency and passports and have effectively forced citizens to accept Russian passports in return for social benefits.

Putin on Thursday accused the West of trying to provoke conflicts and revolutions to destabilize the Commonwealth of Independent States, a group of former Soviet countries.

“Following their goals, our geopolitical adversaries, our opponents, as we said just recently, are ready to expose everyone, anyone, any country, to turn it into the epicenter of the crisis, provoke a color revolution and unleash a bloody massacre,” he said, speaking to CIS heads of security and intelligence during a video conference.

WUNRN

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/29/kremlin-says-putin-will-sign-treaties-annex-ukrainian-territory/