The Russian President Putin, a former KGB colneral, has rushed to be able to report some good news to his country and the world….
That news is that a sham election, has him annoucing that four regions tha his military overran in the last 6 months are now part of Russia…
NO ONE actually buys this and the Ukrainian military continues advancing on the ground in their efforts to take the area’s back…
Putin went on in his speech to explain his view that the West and America are picking on Russia…
He may have got a few things right about his enemies…
But?
He has chosen to use force to get his way, even as the West and the US extended olive branches to his country over the last few decades…
His problem?
Letting go of the old Soviet Union….
It’s gone….
Trying to use a half hearted military to take it back has proven difficult and had has actually united his Western ‘enemies’ to stand up against him….
Messing with the Ukraine after the first grab of Crimea was a mistake it would appear….
The Ukraine, heavily fortified with NATO and American weapons applies to join the organisation, something Putin swore against at the beginning of the conflict…It will take time , if approved….
Some Newly drafted Russian solider’s are being trained in area’s adjacent to NATO Baltic states Poland and Lithuania causing concerns(Reports are some are being sent straight to the front of the conflict) …This countries want more military assistance from NATO and YES….America…
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The speech that Vladimir V. Putin gave to Russian lawmakers and governors on Friday asserting that Russia would take control of four Ukrainian regions reverberated far beyond the Kremlin’s walls. It was a display of belligerent defiance intended, it seemed, to appeal to three primary audiences.
To Russians, he sought to justify the expanding hardship his war has caused by insisting they were fighting for their survival. To the West, he telegraphed his determination that he was unbowed by sanctions or arms deliveries to Ukraine — and that Russia would keep fighting. Implicit in his message was a veiled but menacing threat that Moscow still has an enormous nuclear arsenal.
And to the rest of the world, Mr. Putin tried to cast himself as the leader of a global movement against “Western racists” that he claimed were imposing American hegemony upon the world. The West, he asserted, had not changed from centuries past, in which European powers brutally colonized impoverished countries and fought wars to gain economic advantage.
Western countries, he insisted, had “no moral right” to condemn the annexation of parts of Ukraine….
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Donetsk Province, where Russia holds significant territory, is one of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia is illegally annexing after staged referendums in recent days that Ukraine and Western governments have denounced as fraudulent. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday signed decrees to declare the four regions part of Russia.
Fighting for Lyman, which is in the northern part of Donetsk Province, has intensified over the last few weeks after Ukraine made a series of gains during a rapid counteroffensive in Kharkiv Province in the country’s northeast.
When Lyman fell to Russian forces in May, it presaged the capture weeks later of twin cities to the east of town. Those cities, Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, succumbed to Russian forces who had maximized their superior firepower in helping Moscow to seize control of Luhansk Province, which together with neighboring Donetsk forms the Donbas.
If Ukraine were to recapture Lyman, it would not only increase the likelihood of regaining additional land in Luhansk and Donetsk but put additional pressure on the Kremlin….
Here’s what to know
Here are the regions of Ukraine that Russia is moving to absorb:
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President Biden issued a strong statement Friday condemning Russia’s attempt at illegally annexing Ukrainian territory.
“The United States condemns Russia’s fraudulent attempt today to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory,” Biden said.
“Russia is violating international law, trampling on the United Nations Charter, and showing its contempt for peaceful nations everywhere,” he said, adding that the United States will continue to honor “Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.”
“Make no mistake: these actions have no legitimacy,” he said….
“We have the situation under control. Everything will be Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a statement on Telegram, during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech in Moscow that announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions — nearly a fifth of the country. Putin’s move is widely condemned as a violation of international law.
Zelensky wrote that Ukraine will analyze “the possible actions of the enemy in the near future,” adding that discussions to provide troops with weapons and ammunition in the most heated battle areas were underway.
Denis Pushilin, leader of the Kremlin proxy self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” confirmed that Ukrainian forces have advanced around the strategic city of Lyman in the country’s east, adding that the situation is “disturbing.”
Lyman is a critical transport hub in the Donetsk region, and Ukraine’s recapture of the city, considered imminent, would count as Kyiv’s most significant victory in the Donbas region since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
It could also come on a day when Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to announce that Russia will annex the Donetsk region — as well as the Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions — in a move that will be widely rejected and condemned by the international…
Note…
One should note that the nuclear stuff IS missing from things, eh?
image…AP