Heavy fighting as annexation vote in Ukraine enters final day

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Ukrainian and Russian forces were locked in heavy fighting in different corridor of Ukraine on Tuesday as Russian- systematized blackballs in four regions Moscow hopes to addition drew to a close.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the Donetsk region in the east remained his country’s– and Russia’s– top strategic precedence, with fighting gulfing several municipalities as Russian colors try to advance to the south and west.

There were also clashes in Kharkiv region in the northeast– focus of a Ukrainiancounter-offensive this month. And Ukrainian forces pressed on with a crusade to put out of action four islands and other swash crossings to disrupt force lines to Russian forces in the south.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces southern command said on Tuesday that its counter descent in Kherson had redounded in adversary losses of 77 soldiers, six tanks, five howitzers, threeanti-aircraft installations and 14 armoured vehicles.

Moscow hopes to addition the businesses of Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, in the east and south, which make up about 15 percent of Ukraine.

None of the businesses are completely under Moscow’s control and fighting has been under way along the entire frontal line, with Ukrainian forces reporting further advances since they routed Russian colors in a fifth fiefdom, Kharkiv, before this month.Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a veiled trouble to use nuclear munitions to cover Russian soil, which would include the four businesses if adjoined.

Voting on whether to join Russia began on Friday in the regions and is due to end on Tuesday, with the Russian congress conceivably approving the annexation within days.Kyiv and the West have dismissed the blackballs as a sham and pledged not to honor the results.

In Russia, the call- up of some,000 reservists has led to the first sustained demurrers since the irruption began, with one monitoring group estimating at least,000 people have been arrested so far. All public review of Russia’s” special military operation” is banned.

Breakouts out of Russia have vended out and buses have congested border checkpoints, with reports of a 48- hour line at the sole road border to Georgia, the rarepro-Western neighbour that allows Russian citizens to enter without a visa.

Asked about the prospect of the border being shut, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday” I do not know anything about this. At the moment, no opinions have been taken on this.”

Russia counts millions of former selectees as sanctioned reservists. The authorities haven’t spelled out precisely who’s due to be called up, as that part of Putin’s order is classified.The mobilisation has also seen the first sustained review of the authorities within state- controlled media since the war began.

But Sergei Tsekov, a elderly legislator who represents Russian- adjoined Crimea in Russia’s upper house of congress, told RIA news agency” Everyone who’s of conscription age should be banned from travelling abroad in the current situation.”

Two expatriated news spots Meduza and Novaya Gazeta Europe- both reported that the authorities were planning to ban men from leaving, citing unidentified officers.

Moscow says it wants to relieve Ukraine of chauvinists and cover Russian- speaking communities. Kyiv and the West describe Russia’s conduct as an unprovoked war of aggression.Late on Monday, Zelenskiy described the military situation in Donetsk as” particularly severe.”

We’re doing everything to contain adversary exertion. This is ourNo. 1 thing right now because Donbas is still theNo. 1 thing for the occupiers,” he said, pertaining to the wider region that encompasses Donetsk and Luhansk.Russia carried out at least five attacks on targets in the Odesa region using Iranian drones in the last many days, according to the indigenous administration.

Russian dumdums hit the field in Kriviy Rih, Zelenskiy’s home city in central Ukraine, destroying structure and making the field unworkable, Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram