World

MOSCOW — Russia will formally annex four regions of Ukraine its troops occupy at a grand ceremony in Moscow on Friday, the Kremlin has announced, after it suggested using nuclear weapons to defend the territories.

The threats from senior Russian officials have not deterred a sweeping counter-offensive from Kyiv, which has been pushing back Russian troops in the east and is edging nearer the Donetsk region city of Lyman that Moscow's forces battered for weeks to fully capture.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the annexation would be formalised at a ceremony in the Kremlin. The Russian leader will make a "major" speech, he added.

"Tomorrow in Saint George's Hall at the Grand Kremlin Palace at 15:00 (1200 GMT) a signing ceremony will take place on the incorporation of the new territories into Russia," Peskov told reporters.

The Kremlin-installed leaders of the four regions were gathered in the Russian capital on Thursday, a day after pro-Moscow authorities had appealed to Putin directly to integrate the territories into Russia.

Their nearly simultaneous requests to the Kremlin came after the four regions claimed residents had unanimously backed the move in hastily organised referendums that were dismissed by Kyiv and the West as illegal, fraudulent and void.

Ukraine after the so-called referendums said the only appropriate response from the West was to hit Russia with more sanctions and to supply Ukrainian forces with more weapons to keep reclaiming territory.

“Ukraine cannot and will not tolerate any attempts by Russia to seize any part of our land,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Wednesday.

The four territories, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south; Donetsk and Lugansk in the east, create a crucial land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Together, all five make up around 20 per cent of Ukraine, whose forces in recent weeks have been clawing back ground.

Kyiv’s army in particular has been showing progress in the eastern Kharkiv region and recapturing territory in Donetsk, and military observers say Kyiv’s forces are close to capturing Lyman.

“The enemy is carrying out regular attempts to encircle the city,” a pro-Russian official in the Donetsk region, Alexei Nikonorov, told state TV on Thursday.

“At the moment, our units manage to repel all attacks,” he claimed.

‘I don’t want to kill people’ 

Still, Russian forces are striking out along the entire frontline of Ukraine and officials in Kyiv said Thursday that Russian bombardments had killed three in the Dnipropetrovsk region, five in Donetsk and wounded seven in the Kharkiv region.

Along with threats to use nuclear weapons, Putin announced a mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of Russian men to bolster Moscow’s army in Ukraine, sparking demonstrations and an exodus of men abroad.

On a bright morning in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, a young Russian fleeing Moscow’s first military call-up since World War II had a stark answer for why he had left: “I don’t want to kill people.”

“It was very difficult to leave everything behind, home, motherland, my relatives, but it’s better than killing people,” the man in his 20s told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The exodus from Russia into Mongolia follows a similar trend in ex-Soviet countries like Georgia, Kazakhstan and Armenia.

EU member Finland is also affected and announced Thursday it would be shuttering its border to Russians with Schengen tourist visas beginning the next day.

Russia’s move to annex the Ukrainian territories was met with the announcement from the United States of a new package of weapons and supplies worth $1.1 billion, including precision rocket systems, ammunition, armoured vehicles and radars.

And the European Commission proposed fresh sanctions targeting Russian exports worth seven billion euros, an oil price cap, an expanded travel blacklist and asset freezes.

KABUL — Taliban forces on Thursday used gunfire to disperse a women's rally in the Afghan capital supporting protests in Iran over the death of a woman in morality police custody.

Both Afghanistan and Iran are run by hardline Islamist governments that enforce strict dress codes on women.

Chanting the same "Women, life, freedom" mantra used in Iran, about 25 women protested in front of Kabul's Iranian embassy before Taliban forces fired into the air, an AFP correspondent reported.

In neighbouring Iran, dozens of people have been killed since demonstrations erupted over 22-year-old Mahsa Amini's death after she was arrested for allegedly breaching rules on hijabs and modest clothing.

On Thursday in Kabul, women in headscarves carried banners that read: "Iran has risen, now it's our turn!" and "From Kabul to Iran, say no to dictatorship!"

"We need to end these horrific governments," said a protester who did not reveal her name for security reasons.

"People here are also tired of the Taliban's crimes. We are sure that one day our people will rise in the same way as the Iranian people," she said.

Taliban forces swiftly snatched the banners and tore them in front of the protesters.

They also ordered some journalists to delete videos of the rally.

An organiser, speaking anonymously, told AFP the rally was staged "to show our support and solidarity with the people of Iran and the women victims of the Taliban in Afghanistan".

'Severe restrictions' 

Protests staged by women in Afghanistan have become increasingly rare after the detention of core activists at the start of the year.

Like in Iran, women risk arrest, violence and stigma for taking part in demonstrations calling for their rights.

Since returning to power last year, the Taliban have issued a slew of restrictions controlling women's lives based on their interpretation of Sharia law.

Many of the rules, including dress code, segregation from men and travelling with a male guardian, are monitored by the Taliban’s vice and virtue police who roam the streets dressed in white.

Women must fully cover themselves in public, preferably with the all-encompassing burqa, according to the rules, which are enforced with varying rigour across the country.

The Taliban have also blocked girls from returning to secondary schools and barred women from many government jobs, although some senior Taliban are divided on the issue of education.

Deputy foreign minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai at a function earlier this week said “education is obligatory for men and women”.

“If we want national unity then doors of educational institutions must be open for all,” he said on live television.

The state of women’s rights in Afghanistan remains a top concern for Western nations, with no country yet officially recognising the Taliban government.

Earlier this week, a United Nations report denounced the “severe restrictions” on women and called for them to be reversed.

“The international community has not and will not forget Afghan women and girls,” the report said.

PUNTA GORDA, United States — Hurricane Ian flooded cities, turned out the lights on millions, and left migrants from an overturned boat missing on Thursday as Florida assessed damage from one of the most intense US storms in years.

Officials readied a major emergency response to the deluge that laid waste to coastal Florida as the hurricane roared through beachfront towns and horizontal rain pounded communities for hours.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded Ian to a tropical storm, but said it was causing "catastrophic flooding" and forecast further "life-threatening" floods, storm surge and high winds in Florida as well as Georgia and South Carolina.

The US Border Patrol said that a boat carrying migrants sank at sea during the hurricane, leaving 20 missing. Four Cubans swam to shore in the Florida Keys Islands and the coast guard rescued three others.

Ian also menaced the city of Orlando and the nearby Disney theme parks, which were shuttered on Wednesday and Thursday.

President Joe Biden declared a "major disaster" in Florida, a move that frees up federal funding for storm relief.

As dawn broke across the state's west coast, residents got their first glimpse at the damage.

Ian made landfall as an extremely powerful hurricane just after 3:00 pm on Wednesday on the barrier island of Cayo Costa, west of the city of Fort Myers.

Dramatic television footage from the coastal city of Naples showed floodwaters surging into beachfront homes, submerging roads and sweeping away vehicles.

Pete DiMara, chief of Naples Fire-Rescue, told CNN that a surge of up to two metres swept through his station, leaving crews unable to respond to emergencies.

Many cell towers are down and "the surge has certainly caused a lot of destruction in the area", DiMara said, urging residents to stay home until his crews can reach them.

To the north, some neighbourhoods in Fort Myers, a city of 83,000, resembled lakes.

The NHC said Ian’s maximum sustained winds reached 240 kilometres per hour when it landed as a Category 4 hurricane, just shy of the maximum Category 5.

As a tropical storm, they had dropped to a maximum 104 kilometres per hour.

Some 2.6 million of Florida’s 11 million electricity customers were without power on Thursday, according to the PowerOutage tracking website.

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis said the state should brace for a “nasty, nasty day, two days.”

The town of Punta Gorda was in near-total darkness overnight after the storm wiped out power, save for the few buildings with generators.

Howling winds toppled trees, pulled chunks out of roofs, and turned debris into dangerous projectiles whipping through town.

Mandatory evacuation orders had been issued for about 2.5 million people in a dozen coastal Florida counties, with several dozen shelters set up.

Airports stopped all commercial flights, and cruise ship companies delayed departures or canceled voyages.

The storm was set to move off the east-central coast of Florida later Thursday and emerge into the Atlantic before blowing through Georgia and the Carolinas to the north.

“Some slight reintensification is forecast, and Ian could be near hurricane strength when it approaches the coast of South Carolina on Friday,” according to the NHC.

National guard called up 

Ian had plunged all of Cuba into darkness Tuesday, after battering the country’s west as a Category 3 storm and downing the island’s power network.

At least two people died in Pinar del Rio province, state media in the country of more than 11 million reported.

By Wednesday power had been restored for some residents of Havana and another 11 provinces, but not in Cuba’s three worst-affected provinces.

In the United States, some 5,000 National Guard personnel were mobilised in Florida as DeSantis vowed an all-out rescue and recovery effort.

“There will be thousands of Floridians who will need help rebuilding,” the governor said.

Last year, four hurricanes were among 20 separate weather incidents that cost the United States $1 billion or more, the second-most billion-dollar disasters recorded in a calendar year behind 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

Human activity has caused life-threatening climate change resulting in more severe weather events across the globe.

PORT CHARLOTTE, US — Heavy winds and rain pummelled Florida on Wednesday as Hurricane Ian intensified to just shy of the strongest Category 5 level, threatening to wreak "catastrophic" destruction on the southern US state.

Forecasters warned of a looming once-in-a-generation calamity, with life-threatening storm surges, extensive flooding and devastating winds promising what Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called a "nasty" natural disaster.

The National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said in its latest advisory that the "extremely dangerous eyewall of Ian [was] moving onshore" and bringing sustained winds of 155 miles (250 kilometres) per hour, just two mph shy of Category 5 intensity — the strongest on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Some 2.5 million people were under mandatory evacuation orders in a dozen coastal Florida counties, with voluntary evacuation recommended in several others.

With the golden hour to flee having passed — and hurricane force winds nearly touching south-western Florida — authorities were advising residents to hunker down and stay indoors.

“Ian has strengthened into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane,” the NHC said, warning of “catastrophic storm surge, winds, and flooding”.

Airports in Tampa and Orlando stopped all commercial flights, and some 337,000 households were already without power.

“This is going to be a nasty, nasty day, two days,” DeSantis said.

“It could make landfall as a Category 5, but clearly this is a very powerful major hurricane that’s going to have major impacts.”

With conditions rapidly deteriorating, some thrill-seekers were seen walking in the mud flats of Tampa Bay and in Charlotte Harbor, further south, ahead of Ian’s arrival.

The storm was poised to roar ashore near Fort Myers and Port Charlotte, along the state’s west coast, before moving across central Florida and emerging in the Atlantic Ocean by late Thursday.

With up to 61 centimetres of rain expected to fall on parts of the so-called Sunshine State, and a storm surge that could reach devastating levels of 3.6 to 5.5 metres above ground, authorities were warning of dire emergency conditions.

“This is a life-threatening situation,” the NHC warned.

Widespread blackout 

Ian a day earlier had plunged all of Cuba into darkness after battering the country’s west as a Category 3 for more than five hours before moving back out over the Gulf of Mexico.

The storm damaged Cuba’s power network and left the island “without electrical service”, state electricity company Union Electrica said.

Only the few people with gasoline-powered generators had electricity on the island of more than 11 million people.

Others had to make do with flashlights or candles at home, and lit their way with cell phones as they walked the streets.

“Desolation and destruction. These are terrifying hours. Nothing is left here,” a 70-year-old resident of the western city of Pinar del Rio was quoted as saying in a social media post by his journalist son, Lazaro Manuel Alonso.

At least two people died in Pinar del Rio province, Cuban state media reported.

‘Historic event’ 

In the United States, the Pentagon said 3,200 national guardsmen had been called up in Florida, with another 1,800 on the way.

FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) administrator Deanne Criswell warned that Ian’s “painful impacts” were being felt even before the hurricane’s landfall.

National Weather Service Director Ken Graham echoed concerns about what lies ahead, expressing certainty Ian will leave a trail of destruction.

“This is going to be a storm we talk about for many years to come,” he said. “It’s a historic event.”

As climate change warms the ocean’s surface, the number of powerful tropical storms, or cyclones, with stronger winds and more precipitation is likely to increase. 

KYIV — Ukraine called on EU and NATO countries Wednesday to hit Russia with more sanctions and send more weapons to the frontline after Kremlin proxies held "sham" annexation votes in four occupied Ukrainian regions.

The appeal for more weapons from Kyiv came despite repeated warnings from Moscow that it could use its nuclear arsenal to defend the territories from a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has wrested back swathes of territory this month already.

The alleged results of the referendums in the Russian-controlled regions were announced by Kremlin proxy officials late Tuesday, and authorities were expected to ask Moscow to make good on the claimed results as early as Wednesday.

Kyiv's closest backers within the NATO military alliance and the European Union have all denounced the move and said they would not recognise any outcome. On Wednesday, Ukraine urged them to take concrete steps.

"Ukraine calls on the EU, NATO and the Group of Seven to immediately and significantly increase pressure on Russia, including by imposing tough sanctions and significantly increase their military aid to Ukraine," Ukraine's foreign ministry said in a statement.

The elections represent a turning point in the seven-month invasion as Russian officials in Moscow suggest that they could use nuclear weapons and Vladimir Putin rushed thousands of Russian military draftees to cement Kremlin's authority in the territories.

'In the end, we'll win' 

Taken together, the four territories, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south; Donetsk and Lugansk in the east, create a crucial land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Together, all five make up around 20 per cent of Ukraine, whose forces in recent weeks have been clawing back ground.

Despite those gains, particularly in the north east, Russian forces have battered the second-largest city of Kharkiv and overnight a salvo of missiles hit a railway yard, knocking out power to more than 18,000 households.

Railway workers were inspecting a landscape of bent and twisted mental in the aftermath of the strikes early Wednesday after firefighters extinguished a blaze set by the attacks.

“These votes are not legitimate. We believe in our forces. In the end, we’ll win,” said Denys Kochkov, a 30-year-old employee at the rail yard.

“We here even speak Russia, and what do we get? Do we have peace and fraternity? No. You see what we get,” said Iryna, 51, another railway employee at the blast site.

The Kremlin-backed heads of both the Donetsk and Lugansk regions — which have partially been controlled by separatists since 2014 — indicated Wednesday morning they would travel to Moscow to appeal to authorities to formally begin the annexation.

 ‘I’m in shock’ 

And Vladimir Saldo the Russian-installed head of the Kherson region — where Ukrainian forces have been making incremental gains — said residents there had “voted for joining Russia”.

He added he would appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin to initiate legal proceedings to annex the Ukrainian region bordering Crimea “as quickly as possible”.

Lawmakers are expected to vote hastily to annex the territories after the results are announced and Russian news agencies have said Putin could sign legislation formalising the land grab this week.

His threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine coincided with his decision to call up hundreds of thousands of military reservists to back up Russia’s struggling forces in eastern Ukraine.

The move has sparked panic, protests and a exodus among military-aged Russian men for neighbouring countries like Georgia and Kazakhstan.

But at a military recruitment office in Saint Petersburg there was confusion and resignation as draftees and their families saw off their loved ones and family members.

Nikita, a 25-year-old reservist had tears in his eyes as he held hands with his 22-year-old fiancé as he said goodbye.

“If you have to go, you have to,” he said.

“I don’t what to say. I am in shock,” Alina said, her gaze locked on Nikita.

Along the frontline of Ukraine, six people were injured in the Kharkiv region by Russian strikes, officials in Kyiv said, while five civilians were killed and 10 more wounded by Moscow’s forces.