Putin signs annexation of Ukrainian regions as losses mount
Kyiv(AP): Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the final papers Wednesday to annex four regions of Ukraine while his military struggled to control the new territory that was added in violation of international laws.
Ukrainian law enforcement officials, meanwhile, reported discovering more evidence of torture and killings in areas retaken from Russian forces.
The documents finalising the annexation were published on a Russian government website. In a defiant move, the Kremlin held the door open for further land grabs in Ukraine.
Speaking in a conference call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that certain territories will be reclaimed, and we will keep consulting residents who would be eager to embrace Russia.
Peskov did not specify which additional Ukrainian territories Moscow is eyeing, and he wouldn't say if the Kremlin planned to organise more such referendums.
Putin last week signed treaties that purported to absorb Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions into Russia.
The annexation followed Kremlin-orchestrated referendums in Ukraine that the Ukrainian government and the West have dismissed as illegitimate.
The Russian president defended the validity of the vote, saying it's more than convincing" and "absolutely transparent and not subject to any doubt.
This is objective data on people's mood, Putin said Wednesday at an event dedicated to teachers, adding that he was pleasantly surprised by the results.
On the ground, Russia faced mounting setbacks, with Ukrainian forces retaking more and more land in the eastern and southern regions that Moscow now insists are its own.
The precise borders of the areas Moscow is claiming remain unclear, but Putin has vowed to defend Russia's territory including the annexed regions with any means at his military's disposal, including nuclear weapons.
Shortly after Putin signed the annexation legislation, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, Andriy Yermak, wrote on his Telegram channel that the worthless decisions of the terrorist country are not worth the paper they are signed on."
A collective insane asylum can continue to live in a fictional world, Yermak added.
Zelenskyy responded to the annexation by announcing Ukraine's fast-track application to join NATO.
In a decree released Tuesday, he also ruled out negotiations with Russia, declaring that Putin's actions made talking to the Russian leader impossible.
In the eastern Kharkiv region, more disturbing images emerged from areas recently reclaimed from Russia.
Serhiy Bolvinov, who heads the investigative department of the national police in the region, said authorities are investigating an alleged Russian torture chamber in the village of Pisky-Radkivski.
He posted an image of a box of what appeared to be precious metal teeth and dentures presumably extracted from those held at the site. The authenticity of the photo could not be confirmed.
Ukraine's prosecutor general also spoke of new evidence of torture and killings found Wednesday in the Kharkiv region.
Andriy Kostin told The Associated Press on the sidelines of a security conference in Warsaw that he had just been notified of four bodies found with signs of possible torture.
He said they were believed to be civilians but an investigation was still needed.
Two bodies were found in a factory in Kupiansk with their hands bound behind their backs, while two other bodies were found in Novoplatonivka, their hands linked by handcuffs.
During his public speech, Kostin said officials found the bodies of 24 civilians, including 13 children and one pregnant woman, who had been killed in six cars near Kupiansk. It was not clear when the discovery was made.
On the battlefield, Russia and Ukraine gave conflicting assessments of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Russian-occupied southern Kherson region. A Moscow-installed regional official insisted that Ukrainian advances had been halted.
As of this morning ... there are no movements by Kyiv's forces, Kirill Stremousov said Wednesday in comments to state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti. He vowed the Ukrainian fighters would not enter the city of Kherson.
However, the Ukrainian military said the Ukrainian flag had been raised above seven Kherson region villages previously occupied by the Russians.
The closest of the liberated villages to the city of Kherson is Davydiv Brid, some 100 kilometers away.
The deputy head of the Ukrainian regional government, Yurii Sobolevskyi, said military hospitals were full of wounded Russian soldiers and that Russian military medics lacked supplies. Once they are stabilized, Russian soldiers were getting sent to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Not everyone arrives, Sobolevskyi wrote.
In the neighbouring Mykolaiv region, the governor said Russian troops have started to withdraw from Snihurivka, a city of 12,000 that Moscow seized early in the war and annexed along with the Kherson region.
A Russian-installed official in Snihurivka, Yury Barbashov, denied that Russian troops had lost control of the city, a strategic railway hub, but said the Ukrainian forces were advancing.
In the Moscow-annexed eastern Donetsk region, where Ukrainian forces still control some areas, Russian forces shelled eight towns and villages, the Ukrainian presidential office said.
After reclaiming the Donetsk city of Sviatohirsk, Ukrainian forces located a burial ground for civilians and found the bodies of four people, according to Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko.
In the Luhansk region, also in the eastern Donbas, Gov. Serhiy Haidai said Ukrainian forces have retaken several villages. He did not name the villages, but said the retreating Russian forces are mining the roads and buildings.
In central Ukraine, multiple explosions rocked Bila Tserkva, a city about 80 kilometers south of the capital, Kyiv.
Regional leader Oleksiy Kuleba said six Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones struck the city and set off fires at what he described as infrastructure facilities. One person was wounded.
Russia has increasingly employed kamikaze or suicide drones in recent weeks, posing a new challenge to Ukrainian defences.
The unmanned vehicles can stay aloft for long periods of time before diving into targets and detonating their payloads at the last moment.
Many of the earlier attacks with the Iranian-made drones happened in the south of Ukraine and not near the capital, which hasn't been targeted for weeks.
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TVK falls short within touching distance; what next to ensure majority
Chennai (PIT): With TVK falling 10 short of a majority, its leader Vijay has the option of forming a minority government in Tamil Nadu without any outside support, analysts said on Tuesday.
Senior political analyst Sumanth Raman told PTI that the TVK is likely to opt to be a minority government with outside support.
"Since it is the single largest party, TVK has the option to go for that. I don't think he (Vijay) will opt for official support from other political party's MLAs", he said.
"If he opts for minority government, the only thing is that, Vijay will have to prove the support once again after six months".
Raman also pointed out that in 2006 when DMK won only 92 seats, the then party president, the late M Karunanidhi formed a minority government with outside support.
In a completely unexpected turn of events in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, the TVK has emerged victorious, putting an end to the almost six decade-long dominance of the two major Dravidian parties--DMK and AIADMK.
By clinching victory in its debut electoral contest, the party has elevated its status to that of a recognised political entity. However, the Vijay-led TVK did not secure a mandate large enough to form a government with an absolute majority on its own, requiring another 10 to cross the finish line. Experts have varied opinions.
Specifically, to attain a simple majority, a political party must win at least 118 out of the total 234 constituencies. The TVK, however, secured victory in 108 constituencies. Given that the TVK fell short of the majority mark, what might unfold next?
TVK leader Vijay has won in both constituencies he contested--Perambur in Chennai and Tiruchirappalli East. As per the election commission rule, he will have to resign from one of these seats. TVK sources said that the leader is likely to surrender the Tiruchirappalli assembly seat.
If Vijay does so, the party's total tally of seats will decrease by one. Then it will be 107. Adding to the number games, TVK appointed Speaker of the Assembly will be ineligible to cast a vote during a confidence motion and the party's effective voting strength will be reduced by yet another seat, which comes to 106.
Accordingly, the TVK requires the support of an additional 12 members to demonstrate its majority. As of now, within the DMK alliance, the Congress party has secured five seats, the two Communist parties have won two seats each (totaling four), while the DMDK has secured one seat, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has won two seats and the VCK has secured two seats.
Within the AIADMK alliance, the PMK has grabbed four seats, the BJP has won one seat, and the AMMK has secured one seat. Going by the calculations, if TVK gets the support of other parties within both alliances, it would gain an additional 21 seats.
TVK could potentially secure a total of 129 seats (108 + 21). However, the TVK does not require the support of all those parties, and the backing of just 12 members would suffice.
As Vijay is expected to visit Lok Bhavan on Wednesday (May 6) to meet the governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar to stake claim to form government, the governor is expected to offer the TVK two options.
First, he may summon the TVK chief and instruct him to demonstrate his majority on the floor of the legislative assembly. Alternatively, he might ask Vijay to gather letters of support from "allied" parties and submit them to him.
If the TVK secures support exceeding 118 seats, the governor would invite the party form the government. If TVK fails to garner support from other political parties, it will be denied the opportunity to form the government.
In such a scenario, the governor has the option to invite the DMK, the party holding the second-highest number of seats to form the government.
If DMK too is unable to form a government, the state of Tamil Nadu will come under governor's rule for the subsequent six months. Following this period, fresh legislative Assembly elections will be once again held across all 234 constituencies.
Another political analyst Durai Karuna ruled out that TVK will go for a minority government.
"If he (Vijay) gives an appeal, many political parties including Congress, VCK and left parties will join TVK", he claimed. "In addition, the AIADMK, which has decided to organise MLAs meeting on Wednesday, might also announce that it would support TVK unconditionally".
He said a clear picture on Vijay's decision will emerge in a couple of days.
Tharasu Shyam, political critic, claimed that Congress was "holding talks with Vijay."
"From now on, the DMK must change its approach and this applies equally to the AIADMK," he said in an apparent reference to some reported difference of opinion between allies DMK and Congress over seat-sharing and power-sharing ahead of the April 23 polls.
Incidentally, AICC in-charge for Tamil Nadu, Girish Chodankar, on Tuesday admitted that the Congress party leadership's decision to stick with the DMK alliance went against strong grassroots sentiment favouring the TVK.
"The local leaders, the grassroots level leaders, were suggesting if Rahul Gandhi, who has a large acceptance in Tamil Nadu, joins the campaign with Vijay, it will create a big impact and we can sweep the Tamil Nadu polls, and get somewhere around 180-190 seats," Chodankar told PTI Videos.
