Russian strikes strike civilian convoy multiple periods outdoors Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine says
Russian strikes strike a civilian convoy a number of instances outside the town of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian officers stated.
The strikes, which hit a convoy of folks who had been heading to Russian-occupied territory to decide on up their family members, killed at minimum 23 people and wounded at least 28, Zaporizhzhia Regional Governor Oleksandr Starukh said in a submit on Telegram.
“There are dead and wounded. Rescuers, medics, and all suitable products and services are at this time functioning at the website,” Starukh wrote.
Ukraine’s Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai wrote on Telegram, “Close to Zaporizhzhia, the Russians fired rockets at a convoy heading to the occupied territory. It should really be noted that the departure of 34 automobiles with citizens of Luhansk region was prepared. Additional thorough facts about the victims is becoming clarified.”
CNBC has not been in a position to independently confirm the facts. Photographs posted by Starukh and others on social media exhibit disturbing scenes of burnt cars and bodies on the street.
A Russian-appointed leader of occupied Zaporizhzhia, Volodymyr Rogov, was quoted by Russian condition news agency RIA as blaming Ukrainian forces for the assault, expressing “Ukrainian militants hit a convoy with dozens of civilian autos queuing.”
Putin to formally announce Ukraine annexations through ceremony
Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to keep a ceremony today formally declaring the annexation of four regions of Ukraine, in which sham referendums were being held by Russian-appointed authorities in excess of the past week.
The referendum’s final results, which have been rejected by substantially of the international neighborhood, confirmed massive majorities of every single territory — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — voting to be part of the Russian Federation. The locations, producing up the country’s japanese and southern flanks, sort around 15% of Ukraine’s territory.
Several studies have surfaced of votes remaining pressured at gunpoint, and of votes currently being staged.
Government spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that Putin will indicator accession files at the Kremlin and then deliver a speech. A songs live performance is also set to choose area at Moscow’s Purple Square.
Analysts and earth leaders get worried that Putin’s annexation will make him come to feel justified in employing nuclear weapons to defend the territories from any individual making an attempt to choose them back, as he hinted as substantially in his speech previous 7 days if the “territory of Russia” came under threat.
— Natasha Turak
‘The U.S. does not, and will under no circumstances, recognize’ Russia’s sham referenda, Blinken states
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks following viewing the “Burma’s Path To Genocide” exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, March 21, 2022.
Kevin Lamarque | AFP | Getty Photographs
Secretary of Point out Antony Blinken slammed Russia’s “attempt at a land grab in Ukraine” and stated that the U.S. will under no circumstances realize the success of the Kremlin’s “sham referenda.”
“The benefits were orchestrated in Moscow and do not reflect the will of the folks of Ukraine. The United States does not, and will in no way, identify the legitimacy or end result of these sham referenda or Russia’s purported annexation of Ukrainian territory,” Blinken wrote in a statement.
“This spectacle carried out by Russia’s proxies is illegitimate and violates international regulation,” he included.
Biden’s best diplomat stated that the U.S. will go on to “aid Ukraine for as lengthy as it requires.”
The Kremlin has beforehand said that the benefits of the referendums held in 4 regions of Ukraine are genuine.
— Amanda Macias
‘It can still be stopped,’ Zelenskyy claims of Russian tries to annex elements of Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Lviv, Ukraine on August 18, 2022.
Emin Sansar | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed Russia’s endeavor to annex further swaths of his country.
“Russia will not get new territory in Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in Russian in a nightly tackle on the Telegram messaging app. “It can nonetheless be stopped,” he extra.
“The price of one particular particular person in Russia seeking to continue on this war will be that the entire Russian culture will be left without having a normal financial state, without a good lifestyle, and without having regard for any human values,” Zelenskyy stated, in accordance to an NBC News translation.
“In purchase to stop this, you have to cease the a single in Russia who wishes war more than daily life. Your everyday living, citizens of Russia,” Zelenskyy claimed devoid of naming Russian President Vladimir Putin.
— Amanda Macias
