Putin may announce ‘accession’ of occupied territories to Russia on Sept 30 – British intelligence

According to Ukrinform, the UK Ministry of Defense said this in an intelligence update on Tuesday.

“President Putin is scheduled to address both houses of the Russian parliament on Friday 30 September. There is a realistic possibility that Putin will use his address to formally announce the accession of the occupied regions of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. The referendums currently underway within these territories are scheduled to conclude on 27 September,” the report says.

It is noted that Russia’s leaders hope that any “accession” announcement will be seen as a vindication of the “special military operation” and will consolidate patriotic support for the conflict.

“This aspiration will likely be undermined by the increasing domestic awareness of Russia’s recent battlefield sets-backs and significant unease about the partial mobilisation announced last week,” the report says.

As reported by Ukrinform, on September 23, the Russian invaders launched a pseudo-referendum "on the accession to Russia" of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. The "voting" in the presence of armed soldiers is underway for several days, they come to the residents of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, demanding to "express their opinion". However, the percentage of those who took part in the sham referendum remains very low.

The leaders of western countries stated that Russian pseudo-referendums in Ukraine would be illegitimate

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