Putin plans to announce the annexation of the occupied territories this Friday, according to British Intelligence

Russian President Vladimir Putin could address Parliament this Friday to officially announce the accession of the occupied Russian territories, according to the British Ministry of Defense, with information from its intelligence services and collected by The Guardian. This Tuesday marks the last of the five days of voting in the fake referendums held by the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, in the east, and the territories of the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, in the south, with the aim that join the Russian Federation. Ukraine and practically the entire international community deny any legitimacy to the consultations. Moscow had already announced that in the event that the option to join the country wins, which is taken for granted due to the circumstances in which the consultations are being held, it will not delay the annexation of those territories. “I am convinced that this will be quite fast,” said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dimitri Peskov. Ukraine fears that an immediate consequence of annexation will be conscription into the Russian army and being forced to take up arms against their own country. For the first time since last Friday, voting takes place at polling stations, since during the previous four days they were held in improvised places or at citizens’ homes, a procedure that was argued with the need to guarantee security. of the voters. According to the TASS agency, in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, 450 and 461 polling stations were opened, respectively. The pro-Russian authorities installed in the Zaporizhia region, which the Russian Army controls more than 70 percent, announced the opening of 349 polling stations, while the Kherson region, occupied by more than 90 percent, reported the creation of 198 electoral commissions. The referendums were declared valid by their organizers, since according to their data more than 50 percent of the electoral census participated. The pro-Russians reported that the electoral colleges will open until 3:00 p.m., Spanish peninsular time, when the count will begin. Russia has already said that, should it win, it would defend them as if they were its territory, potentially even with its arsenal of nuclear weapons. This strategy is reminiscent of what happened with Crimea in 2014.