Russia ready to annex more of Ukraine, White House says

Russia is preparing to annex large areas of southern and eastern Ukraine using proxy officials and sham referendums, the White House said last night.

Residents are being forced to apply for Russian citizenship and use the rouble before ballots as soon as September on joining Russia, John Kirby, a National Security Council spokesman, said. He named the regions around Kherson in the south, Zaporizhzhya further inland and the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk districts as the areas likely to be grabbed. All have been overrun by Russian troops.

“We have information today, including from downgraded intelligence that we’re able to share with you, about how Russia is laying the groundwork to annex Ukrainian territory that it controls in direct violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Kirby said. “Russia is beginning to roll out a version of what you could call an annexation playbook, very similar to the one we saw in 2014,” he said, referring to the annexation of Crimea, which the international community considers illegitimate.

“Already Russia is installing illegitimate proxy officials in the areas of Ukraine that are under its control. And we know their next moves. First, these proxy officials will arrange sham referenda on joining Russia, then Russia will use those sham referenda as a basis to try to claim annexation of sovereign Ukrainian territory. Annexation by force will be a gross violation of the UN charter and we will not allow it to go unchallenged or unpunished.”

Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, is on a week-long visit to Washington, where she held talks with Jill Biden, her counterpart, after accepting a human rights award.

Zelenska, 44, was greeted by President Biden at the White House with a bouquet in her country’s colours of yellow sunflowers, blue hydrangeas and white orchids.

She is to address members of Congress today at the Capitol, after a videolink appearance by her husband there in March three weeks into the war.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation presented Zelenska with its dissident human rights award for the Ukrainian people.

“It is an honour to be here and accept this award in the name of every Ukrainian man and woman fighting Russian aggression today,” she said, speaking through a translator.