Moscow-occupied Ukraine region to ask to join Russia

Bloomberg

Kremlin-installed occupation authorities in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region plan to ask President Vladimir Putin to become part of Russia, Tass reported, the first public sign that he may seek to annex territory taken in the invasion.
The region won’t hold a referendum first but would appeal directly to Putin to absorb it into Russia, Kirill Stremousov, the deputy chief of the administration said, according to the state-run news service.
The occupying authority will prepare the legal basis for joining Russia by the end of the year, Tass cited him as saying.
Kherson’s residents “should determine their fate,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call, in response to a question on Stremousov’s proposal, while declining to say whether a referendum should be held.
Absorbing occupied lands would confirm Russia’s ambition to permanently take more Ukrainian territory and risks derailing stalled peace talks. Kremlin officials are planning annexation of other regions near Kherson, Bloomberg has reported, including the eastern areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Putin recognised as independent days before he ordered the invasion, but its forces haven’t yet captured them completely.
That contradicts Putin’s declaration in a February 24 speech announcing the invasion that “our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories.”
When Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, the Kremlin first staged a referendum on joining Russia that Ukraine, the US and Europe condemned as illegal.
It would be hard to organise similar votes in regions where Russia doesn’t have full control and where there’s little sign of any public support for a takeover.
Kherson must switch to using the ruble and establish a banking system to pay Russian pensions and benefits, while teachers will be brought in from Crimea to “adapt” schools to Russia’s education system, Stremousov said, according
to Tass.
After failing to capture the capital Kyiv and oust President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Russia has switched its focus in the 11-week-long war in Ukraine to more limited goals of securing control over the east and south of the country to form a land link to Crimea.
Still, it’s making only slow progress amid fierce Ukrainian resistance backed by increased arms supplies from the US and its allies.
The Kremlin is installing occupation governments in areas taken by its military and ordering locals to use Russia’s currency as well as re-routing internet and mobile phone connections through Russia.
Officials are preparing to hold referendums in Donetsk and Luhansk on joining Russia though these are likely to be put off until Moscow’s forces fully control both regions, people familiar with the matter said.
Russia backed an insurgency in Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014 after annexing Crimea. If it succeeds in capturing them fully as well as Kherson and nearby Zaporizhzhia region, parts of which Russian troops have seized, it would leave about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and most of its coast in Russia’s hands.