September 30, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss said the UK will "never accept" four occupied regions in Ukraine as anything other than Ukrainian territory, ahead of a Kremlin ceremony during which Russia is expected to formally annex the areas.

In recent days, Kremlin-backed authorities held referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia on joining Russia. The votes are illegal under international law and have been dismissed by Kyiv and Western leaders as "a sham."

"We will never accept the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as anything other than Ukrainian territory," Truss in a statement on Friday.

"The UK will never ignore the sovereign will of those people and we will never accept the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as anything other than Ukrainian territory. 

"Putin cannot be allowed to alter international borders using brute force. We will ensure he loses this illegal war." 

Russian cruise missiles have hit the depot of a transport company in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, killing one person and setting fire to dozens of buses.

Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said one person was killed and five were injured after Russian “Iskander” cruise missiles hit the city.

"Fifty-two buses were burnt, another 98 were damaged. Several high-rise buildings, a gymnasium, a store and administrative buildings were damaged," Reznichenko said.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the President's Office in Kyiv, said two missiles had hit the area.

The head of the Russian Republic of Dagestan expressed his anger in a video on Thursday toward draft officers who had been driving around the city of Derbent, calling on loudspeakers for "all male citizens to report to military enlistment offices.

"How could the Derbent draft officers ask people to report to the enlistment and registration office in such a manner?!" Dagestan's President Sergey Melikov said in a video during a meeting of the Security Council of Dagestan.

During his tirade, he played a short video clip on his phone. The audio plays the following message: "Dear citizens of Derbent, all male citizens must immediately report to the Derbent enlistment office. You must have your passport and military identity card with you."

Russian President Vladimir Putin's "partial mobilization" decree stipulated that reserve servicemen with previous military experience and men with professional experience required by the military would be called up. A total of 300,000 reservists are eligible to be drafted, according to the decree.

Some context: Since Putin's declaration of a "partial mobilization" last week, hundreds of civilians have taken part in a wave of protests against the military mobilization in Dagestan, according to social media videos circulated online.

Protesters nationwide have accused the Russian military of drafting students, fathers and men whose age should exempt them from service.

On Thursday, Putin demanded that "mistakes" made during the partial mobilization be rectified.

"For example, fathers of multiple children or people suffering from chronic diseases or those who are already beyond the age of military service. It is necessary to consider each such case separately."

"And if a mistake is made, then I repeat, it needs to be corrected. Return home those who were called up without a proper reason," he continued.

Russia will on Friday begin formally annexing up to 18% of Ukrainian territory, 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 3 p.m. local time (8 a.m. ET) in the Kremlin’s St. George’s Hall, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Putin will give a speech and meet with Russian-backed leaders of the four occupied regions on the sidelines of the ceremony, he added. 

The announcements come after people in four occupied areas of Ukraine supposedly voted in huge numbers in favor of joining Russia, in five-day polls that were illegal under international law and dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a sham.

The so-called referendums were organized by Russian-backed separatists in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in the eastern Donbas 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. Russia has occupied the two regions since shortly after it invaded the country in late February. On Thursday, Putin signed decrees recognizing the two regions as independent.

Should Russia proceed to annex the territories, it would violate “everything the international community is meant to stand for,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

Meanwhile, the European Union on Wednesday proposed additional sanctions in retaliation for Moscow’s annexation plan, targeting “those involved in Russia's occupation and illegal annexation of areas of Ukraine,” including “the proxy Russian authorities in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and other Russian individuals who organized and facilitated the sham referenda in these four occupied territories of Ukraine.”

Read the full report.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said while there is “a lot of speculation” about who caused the explosions near the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that funnel gas from Russia to Europe, “until a complete investigation is done, no one will really be able to determine for certain what happened.” 

Austin made the remarks in Hawaii after a bilateral meeting with the Philippine Senior Undersecretary and Officer in Charge of the Department of National Defense Jose Faustino Jnr

Austin spoke with Denmark's Minister of Defense Morten Bødskov yesterday by phone. Austin said he offered Denmark “any assistance that the United States may provide.” 

Bødskov told Austin it “will be several days before he is able to get the right team in to look at the sites and try to really determine as best as possible what happened,” Austin said.

The Pentagon is working to form a new command to coordinate arming and training Ukraine, according to two US officials, in an effort to streamline what was a largely ad hoc process rapidly created in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

The new command, to be based at Weisbaden in Germany, will fall under Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the commander of US European Command, which has led the multinational effort to train Ukrainian military forces on advanced Western weapons and deliver those weapons to the border with Ukraine, one official said. It is expected to be led by a 3-star general. 

But the US has been careful in how it discusses the plan, which the officials emphasized is not a major change to the current system of organizing and administering shipments. Officials are careful not to give Putin a reason to claim the US is party to the conflict, especially given the elevated rhetoric coming from the Kremlin about the threat of nuclear weapons usage. 

The New York Times was first to report about the new command.

The Biden administration has openly signaled its ongoing and long-term support for Ukraine. Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in late-February, the US has committed more than $16 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. This week, the Pentagon announced another $1.1 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine, which a senior defense official called a “multiyear investment” in the country’s defenses.

Since the first weeks of the war, the US has looked for ways to quickly and effectively translate Ukrainian requests for different types of equipment into shipments of weapons, turning a process that normally takes weeks or more into a matter of days. 

As Ukrainian forces proved they could stand up to the Russian invasion, and as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hopes for a quick victory turned into a bruising war, the number of countries willing to provide security assistance to Ukraine grew. 

The US and its allies and partners established the Ukraine Contact Group, consisting of more than 40 countries meeting monthly, to coordinate shipments of weapons and equipment into Ukraine. 

The new command will create a more formal structure within the military to manage the shipments, officials said. Its anticipated location in central Germany also places it close to many of the areas used by Western countries to train Ukrainian forces.

The command would also work closely with the International Donor Coordination Center, which has played a critical role in handling the logistics necessary to match the need for Ukrainian weapons with the available stocks of potential donor countries. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on Thursday decrees that recognize the independence of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, parts of which have been occupied by Russia since shortly after it invaded Ukraine in late February.

The two decrees were published by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti and each says the recognition of independence is “taking into the account the will of the people” following referendums. The so-called referendums have been widely criticized as illegitimate and the United States has pledged not to recognize the results.

The decrees come into force from the date of publication according to RIA Novosti.

The West should have seen that Russian President Vladimir Putin was going to invade Ukraine, a Georgia official told CNN on Thursday.

Russia recognized Georgia’s separatist-held regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent following a five-day war in August 2008.

Samkharadze said the reaction by the West to this and to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 emboldened Russia.    

“Russians thought that they have a free hand and they can do whatever they want in the post-soviet space, and that's how we ended up in February 2022 when they invaded Ukraine and started a full scale war against Ukraine,” he said. 

A wife and husband from Maryland, United States, have been charged with conspiring to provide the Russian government with personal medical records from the US government and military, according to a newly unsealed federal indictment.

Anna Gabrielian, an anesthesiologist practicing in Baltimore, and her husband, Jamie Lee Henry, a major and doctor in the US Army, allegedly provided “individually identifiable health information,” which is protected under federal law, to an FBI undercover agent posing as a Russian government employee.

Gabrielian and Henry were arrested Thursday morning, according to the US Attorney’s office in the District of Maryland. After appearing in court, they were released on home detention with 24/7 location monitoring. Gabrielian also has a $500,000 unsecured bond.

According to the indictment, Gabrielian was contacted by the undercover agent – who claimed to be an employee of the Russian embassy – in August, after Gabrielian had reached out to the Russian embassy to offer her and her husband’s assistance to the Russian government several months earlier.

CNN is reaching out to the defendants. No attorneys have been listed in court records. 

Gabrielian and Henry both suggested that they provide the undercover agent with medical information from members of the US military and their families from Fort Bragg, where Henry was stationed as a staff internist, as well as from the medical institution where Gabrielian worked in Baltimore, the indictment alleges.

Henry, the indictment says, provided to the undercover agent during an August meeting the health records of a US Army officer, Department of Defense employee, and the spouses of three Army veterans, two of whom are deceased. The indictment also alleges that Gabrielian conspired to provide the medical information of “the spouse of a government employee and military veteran.”

Henry told the undercover agent that if the US were to declare war against Russia, “at that point, I’ll have some ethical issues I have to work through,” according to the indictment.

Read the full report here.