Election commission members count the votes of refugees from Russian-administered regions of Ukraine for a referendum at a polling station in Simferopol, Crimea, on September 27, 2022.
Stringer | Afp | beautiful pictures
The results from a series of so-called referendums taking place in the occupied regions of Ukraine – predictably showing a resounding majority voting to join Russia – set the stage for Moscow to announce its annexation. enter in the coming days.
That could mark a dangerous point in the war for Ukraine, according to analysts, with Russia potentially turning to unconventional weapons, even nuclear ones, to “defend the world”. defend” what they will say is their territory and citizens.
Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said: “Regarding the risk of Russia using this vote and the annexation of those territories as a pretext for nuclear attacks – we accept aware of this risk, we understand that it is real,” Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“Even if the Russian leader himself is crazy enough to contemplate or even consider launching a nuclear attack on Ukrainian territory, hopefully not everyone around him is crazy. But again, this is not something we can count on so we, as Ukraine, must be prepared for worse and the international community must be prepared not to budge. , unafraid of this nuclear blackmail.”
President Vladimir Putin and other top officials in Moscow have regularly warned that Russia could use nuclear weapons if it feels there is an existential threat to the Russian Federation.
Just on Tuesday, Putin’s ally and former President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Telegram that Russia has the “right” to use nuclear weapons “if aggression by the use of conventional weapons threatens the very existence of our own nation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (L) and Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian General Staff, oversee the military exercise ‘Vostok-2022’ at the Sergeevskyi training ground outside the city Ussuriysk over the Russian Far East on September 6, 2022.
Mikhail Klimentyev | AFP | beautiful pictures
Prime Minister Medvedev again repeated Moscow’s false mantra that Ukraine is controlled by NATO countries and said that “we will do everything to prevent the appearance of nuclear weapons in neighboring countries”. our enemies,” adding that “they understand that if the threat to Russia exceeds the established danger limit, we will have to respond.”
Those comments came after Mr. Putin said last week that the Kremlin would “Definitely use all means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff.”
Planned annexation
The referendums, widely described by the international community as a “sham”, were seen as an excuse for Russia to annex the occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to the south and the “republics” ” pro-Russian separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk in the east. Ukraine. These regions make up about 15% of Ukraine’s territory.
A woman attends the referendum at a mobile polling station in Mariupol on September 25, 2022.
– | Afp | beautiful pictures
Results from referendums in which coercion and widespread illegal voting practices (election officials are said to have gone door-to-door to coerce and collect votes), showing that between 87% and 99% of residents in those regions voted to join the Russian Federation. The results were widely seen as fraudulent and Ukraine and its Western allies rejected the votes and refused to recognize them.
In a statement on Wednesday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that “forcing people in these territories to fill out certain documents before the barrel of a gun is another crime committed by Russia in the course of its aggression against Ukraine” and for know that the occupied areas are still the territory of Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Urging the international community to condemn Russia’s latest act of aggression and immediately deal a blow to Moscow with more sanctions to prevent the annexation, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba say on Facebook that “you can’t stop takeovers with words of deep concern and personal sanctions – serious steps need to be taken.”
As for Russia, they said they only wanted to “protect” Russian citizens and ethnic Russians living in the occupied regions – having established themselves a process of “Russianization” of the occupied or separated areas. with the granting of Russian passports and the promotion of Russian culture. And education.
On Tuesday, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, said that Russia would “bring peace” to the Donbass and would invest and develop the region and other territories, as he claimed Russia did. in Crimea (also annexed in 2014 after a forged referendum).
The results of the mock referendum in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
For now, it is thought that Putin, who is scheduled to speak before the Duma, or the Russian lower house, on Friday, could announce that the occupied regions will be incorporated into the Russian Federation.
Russian news agency Tass reported that the Duma could even debate bills to incorporate Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions into Russia as early as Thursday. While another official, Valentina Matviyenko, the president of the upper house, said lawmakers could consider the merger law on October 4.Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Federica Reccia, Russia and CIS analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, noted on Tuesday that “Russia is racing to consolidate its positions in Ukraine and integrate southeastern regions of Ukraine as quickly as possible.” good.”
“The merger of these areas will give Russia a pretext to re-designate them as ‘de jure’ Russian territory, giving Russia a reason to retaliate with disproportionate force against any,” she said. any attack on them,” she said in an email comment.
“The annexation of these territories would usher in a very dangerous phase in the conflict, potentially increasing the risk of bringing NATO closer to a confrontation with Russia,” she noted.
Dangerous for Putin too
Putin certainly wants to bring the conflict in Ukraine to an end as soon as possible. Seeking to overwhelm Ukraine’s effective counter-offensive forces, Putin last week resorted to a military maneuver, sending some 300,000 reservists to the front lines, a move that made many eligible. fight trying to escape the draft.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense on Tuesday said Russian leaders “almost certainly hope that any announcement of accession will be seen as a demonstration of ‘special military activity’ and will strengthen the patriotic support for the conflict.”
“This aspiration is likely to be dampened by the growing domestic awareness of Russia’s recent battlefield forces and the considerable insecurity about the partial deployment announced last week.”
For all the doubts about the Kremlin’s nuclear weapons, there are some analysts who remain skeptical as to whether, in the end, Putin will actually use them, noting that he has deliberately nurtured a mysterious personality.
John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic: “He’s spent 15 years building his image of being an unpredictable character who, like a mouse in the corner, can attack in ways that we don’t. unforeseeable or in ways that we find irrational. The Council’s Eurasia Center and former US ambassador to Ukraine, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“It’s a classic KGB [the main security agency for the Soviet Union for whom Putin worked before entering politics in the late 1990s] he said. “Putin is a master psychologist.”
Herbst says Putin is losing friends and alienating his remaining allies, such as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian President Narendra Modi, as the protracted war and military mobilization make him isolated and criticized at the domestic level.
Thus, the rhetoric surrounding the use of nuclear weapons has been used to an increasingly desperate Putin seeking to strike fear in the West.
“He’s trying to make a point that he can use nuclear weapons as [way] out of this crisis. He wants to make sure that the US and NATO don’t send more weapons to Ukraine so that the Ukrainian counterattack doesn’t continue,” Herbst noted.
“We cannot rule out something irrational on Putin’s part, but it would be extremely dangerous for him and for Russia as a whole.”
Ukrainian official Yuriy Sak said Kyiv hoped that Russia’s fear of retaliation from the West would prevent that from going too far.
“Russia has been using nuclear blackmail since the first day of this invasion, their propaganda machine is talking about it every day. At the same time, we have heard from the leaders of the free world. , G-7 and the US said, If this God forbid happens, Russia will face very heavy consequences and we hope that this will have a deterrent effect,” he said.
