President Volodymyr Zelensky has called an emergency meeting of senior security and defense officials for Friday, his spokesman said Thursday.
Serhiy Nykyforov announced the meeting on Facebook after the Kremlin said Russian President Putin would sign official documents on Friday announcing Moscow’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions after what Kiev called “fake” referendums.
“President Volodymyr Zelensky has called an emergency meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine for tomorrow. The agenda and other details will be announced later,” Nykyforov was quoted as saying.
Otherwise, as reported, Russia will officially begin annexing up to 18% of Ukrainian territory on Friday, with President Vladimir Putin expected to host a ceremony in the Kremlin to declare four occupied Ukrainian territories part of Russia.
The ceremony will take place on Friday at 15:00 local time, said Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
Putin will deliver a speech and meet the Russian-backed leaders of the four occupied regions on the sidelines of the ceremony, he added.
Peskov’s announcement comes after people in four occupied areas of Ukraine are believed to have voted in large numbers in favor of joining Russia in five-day “referendums” that were illegal under international law and were rejected by Kiev and The West as a fraud.
The so-called referendums were organized by Russian-backed separatists in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) in the eastern Donbass region, where fighting has raged since rebels seized control of parts of Donetsk and Luhansk. in 2014.
The other two areas to hold so-called referendums were Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine.
The process was widely considered illegal, as experts said it was impossible to hold free and fair elections in a war zone or occupied territory.