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Putin moves to cement annexations in Ukraine

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Matthew Mpoke Bigg


The writer is a correspondent covering international news


Ten days after President Vladimir Putin of Russia declared the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces, his government is stepping up efforts to bind those territories more tightly to Moscow.


Workers at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility, which Russian forces control, are being pressured to sign contracts with the Russian nuclear energy company, in defiance of Kyiv, a United Nations official said.


And pro-Russian authorities in the southern Ukrainian province of Kherson said on Saturday that they had set up a hotline for civilians seeking to leave the contested area — but only if they wanted to go to Russia.


The Russian moves showed that despite failing to gain momentum on the battlefield with widespread bombardments of Ukrainian cities and towns over the past week, Putin intends to shrug off international condemnation and press ahead with efforts to link the occupied provinces to the Russian state.


Putin signed far-reaching legislation on October 5 to formalise the annexation, despite the fact that his forces did not actually control all of the territory, a move that was widely condemned as a violation of international law.


Now Russia is taking preliminary steps to cement the annexation with facts on the ground.


At the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility, Ukrainian engineers who have continued to operate the plant under the watch of Russian soldiers managed to restore power to the facility late Friday, reducing worries about an accident at one of the war’s most sensitive sites.


Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a statement that the plant’s employees had come under “unacceptable pressure” to sign contracts with the state-owned Russian nuclear energy company, Rosatom, which would flip their allegiance from Ukraine to Russia.


That pressure adds to the stresses on the workers that Ukrainian officials have been warning about for months; they say that Russian soldiers have subjected the already fatigued staff to harsh interrogations and torture.


In Kherson, which Moscow now considers part of Russia, pro-Russian authorities announced the creation of a hotline Saturday for residents seeking to evacuate the contested area, building on days of calls by Russian proxy leaders for civilians to leave. The Ukrainian government considers those proxy leaders traitors.


The deputy head of the pro-Russian administration in the region, Kirill Stremousov, said in a post on Telegram that to “avoid casualties” among the civilian population, the local administration “strongly recommends taking the opportunity of a humanitarian trip for recreation and recovery to the Russian Federation.”


The post listed a hotline number with a Russian country code for organising such trips.


Russia’s deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, said that several thousand children had left the region and were now “resting in children’s camps.”


It was not immediately possible to reach the number or to verify whether Russia had helped civilians leave the province.


Many civilians have fled Kherson on their own in recent weeks, often for territory controlled by Ukraine.


Still reckoning with the fallout from its decision to agree with other oil-producing states to cut oil output, a move that Washington criticised as helping Russia, Saudi Arabia announced on Friday that it would provide $400 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine.


The cuts announced this month by the group of oil-producing companies known as OPEC+ angered President Joe Biden, who has vowed to reassess the US’ relationship with the kingdom, and US lawmakers, some of whom have called for more drastic action, like halting arms sales. The United States said that the cuts could push up oil prices, adding cash to Russia’s war chest and undermining US and European efforts to isolate Moscow.


The cuts also weaken efforts to limit Moscow’s income from oil sales and could add to surging inflation in the West.


Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, spoke with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Friday and offered the aid to “alleviate the human suffering of the Ukrainian people,” according to the official Saudi Press Agency.


Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter that Saudi Arabia would provide financial aid to Ukraine, but he did not specify the amount or the timing.


Biden responded Friday to Russia’s latest bombardment of civilian population centres in Ukraine by authorising an additional $725 million in weapons and military equipment for Kyiv, bringing the total of US security assistance to Ukraine to $17.6 billion since the war began.


The Pentagon said in a statement that the package would include munitions and military vehicles. The State Department said it would also include military education and training.


It will not, a Pentagon official said, include much in the way of new capabilities to defend against Russian strikes from the air, although that may come soon. Western officials have been under pressure to speed up the delivery of air defence systems to Ukraine since a barrage of Russian missiles battered cities across the country last week.


Instead, the aid will be directed primarily to restocking ammunition for weapons systems that Ukrainian troops have been using successfully in their counteroffensive, such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.


Zelenskyy said that he was “sincerely grateful” to Biden for the new package. “We will receive, in particular, much-needed rounds for HIMARS and artillery,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on Twitter. -- New York Times


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