By Yuliya TalmazanNBC
News
Russia's military-controlled areas of southern and eastern Ukraine announced on Tuesday that they would hold a referendum this week to formally annex them to Russia, a move that was applauded by the Russian regime and dismissed by Ukraine as a desperate attempt to curb its successful counteroffensive.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin urged those responsible for the Russian military industry to increase production, and the Russian Parliament approved a bill to toughen punishments for a series of crimes, including desertion of soldiers, if they are committed. during periods of mobilization or martial law.
The sudden flurry of activity indicated the Russian regime may be preparing to sharply intensify its approach to
a conflict that has dragged on for almost seven months and has recently tilted against its forces
.
His public supporters reveled in the prospect of all-out war and a new confrontation with the West, which has warned against escalating the referendums illegally.
Ukrainian soldiers in a tank on Monday in the Kupyansk region, a recently liberated area in the Kharkiv region.Getty Images
The actual impact these votes would have is unclear, and analysts suggest they may illustrate growing concern about how much longer the Russian military can maintain control over Ukrainian territory it has occupied.
Separatist officials from the eastern Lugansk and Donetsk areas, as well as the southern Kherson region and partially occupied Zaporizhzhia, announced they would hold the vote for four days starting Friday, Russian state news agency Tass reported.
It is unclear whether the proposed annexation will cover the entire territory of the provinces or just the areas currently occupied by Russia.
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These developments come just a week after Ukraine successfully recaptured swathes of territory in the northeastern province of Kharkiv, in what many analysts say could be a turning point after more than six months of war that has exposed the Russian military vulnerability and has drawn criticism even from ardent Putin supporters.
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The urgency of the move for Russia to annex the occupied areas suggests Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive is "causing
proxy
forces and some Kremlin
officials to panic
," according to the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank.
US-based military research
"This is the reaction to the fact that they can't hold the territory with the current conventional forces that they have, so they have to create this additional safeguard by formally annexing this territory," said Orysia Lutsevych, a researcher at the Chatham House institute in London.
Russia held a vote to annex the Crimean peninsula in 2014, but most of the international community rejected the results.
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But this time, the referendums come amid a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russia captured the entire Luhansk region in July after heavy fighting, and has been battling Ukrainian forces in neighboring Donetsk.
The two provinces make up the industrial region of Donbass, which Putin has made the main target of what he calls his "special military operation" since he failed to take the capital, kyiv.
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Russian-backed separatists in the region have been fighting Ukrainian forces in a deadly conflict since 2014. Putin acknowledged the independence of the breakaway regions in preparation for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February.
On Monday, Ukrainian authorities said their forces had liberated a village in Luhansk, depriving Russia of full control of the region.
The village is just 7 miles west of the city of Lysychansk, which saw weeks of heavy fighting before falling to Russian troops this summer.
"The Russian leadership may be running out of ways to try to stop the Ukrainian forces as they advance across the Oskil River and approach the Luhansk region," the Institute for the Study of War added in its Monday assessment.
"The Kremlin may believe that partial annexation could prompt the recruitment of additional forces,
both from within Russia and from newly annexed Ukrainian territory," he said.
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Putin has so far resisted calls from nationalist voices and pro-military bloggers for a general mobilization, a move that could boost his weakened forces but could prove unpopular with Russian public opinion and give the impression that his campaign in the Ukraine is failing.
One of the most belligerent figures in the Kremlin, former President Dmitry Medvedev, assured on Monday that the holding of the referendums is "of great importance", while noting that the absorption of the Donbass provinces would make invading them equivalent to hitting Russia, which would increase the risk of a new escalation if the Ukrainian troops continue advancing.
“They want to make the territories properly Russian, so that they can then threaten nuclear blackmail,” Lutsevych added.
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The news of the planned referendums was condemned by Ukraine.
"The fake 'referendums' will not change anything
," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, "Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will continue to liberate them no matter what Russia says."
The head of the office of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Andriy Yermak, indicated that the referendums are part of Russia's “naive blackmail”.
"This is the fear of defeat," Yermak wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
