MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin will hold a signing ceremony in the Kremlin on Friday to add territories of Ukraine into Russia, his spokesman said.
Russian-backed officials in four regions of Ukraine said referendums showed overwhelming majorities of their populations had voted to join Russia in votes slammed by Ukraine and the West as “shams”.
Putin will also give a major speech on Friday following the signing ceremony in the Kremlin and will meet with Moscow-appointed administrators of the Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin said.
The Russian-installed administrations of the four Ukrainian provinces on Wednesday formally asked Putin to incorporate them into Russia, which Russian officials have suggested is a formality.
“The results are clear. Welcome home, to Russia!,” Dmitry Medvedev, a former president who serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said on Telegram.
Russian-backed authorities claim to have carried out the referendums over five days in parts of eastern and southern Ukraine that makes up around 15 per cent of the country’s territory.
Residents who escaped to Ukrainian-held areas in recent days have told of people being forced to mark ballots in the street by roving officials at gunpoint. Footage filmed during the exercise showed Russian-installed officials taking ballot boxes from house to house with armed men in tow.
“They can announce anything they want. Nobody voted in the referendum except a few people who switched sides. They went from house to house but nobody came out,” said Lyubomir Boyko, 43, from Golo Pristan, a village in Russian-occupied Kherson province.
Russia says voting was voluntary, in line with international law, and that turnout was high. The referendums and notion of annexations has been rejected globally, as was Russia’s 2014 takeover of Crimea from Ukraine.
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