“Liberate” Ukraine
Putin reaffirmed that his goal was to “liberate” the Donbass industrial region in eastern Ukraine, and that the majority of the region’s inhabitants did not want to return to the “yoke” of Ukraine.
Before Putin’s speech, world leaders gathered at the United Nations in New York denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and plans for four occupied regions to hold referendums on joining Russia in the coming days.
In an apparently coordinated move, pro-Russian authorities have announced referendums for September 23-27 in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia provinces, which make up about 15% of Ukraine’s territory, an area the size of Hungary.
Russia already considers Luhansk and Donetsk, which together make up the Donbass region that Moscow partially occupied in 2014, to be independent states. Ukraine and the West consider all parts of Ukraine held by Russian forces to be illegally occupied.
Russia now holds about 60% of Donetsk and had captured almost all of Luhansk in July after slow progress during months of intense fighting.
These gains are now under threat after Russian forces were pushed out of neighboring Kharkov province this month, losing control of their main supply lines for much of the Donetsk and Luhansk front.
“The Russians can do whatever they want. Nothing will change,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said Tuesday in response to questions from journalists at the United Nations, where the leaders were arriving for a meeting of the Assembly. General dominated by the war in Ukraine.
In a tweet, he added: “Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will continue to liberate them no matter what Russia says.”
If the referendum plan “wasn’t so tragic, it would be fun,” French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters ahead of the UN assembly in New York.
Putin on February 24 ordered a “special military operation” in Ukraine to root out dangerous nationalists and “denazify” the country. The war has left thousands dead, destroyed cities and driven millions from their homes in the former Soviet republic.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that Putin will only give up his “imperial ambitions”, which risk destroying Ukraine and Russia, if he recognizes that he cannot win the war.
“This is why we will not accept any peace dictated by Russia and this is why Ukraine must be able to repel Russia’s attack,” Scholz said in his first speech to the General Assembly.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told the assembly that the UN’s credibility was in jeopardy due to the invasion by Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, and that the council needed to be reformed.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is conduct that tramples on the philosophy and principles of the UN charter… It should never be tolerated,” Kishida said.