Reuters:
KYIV/UNITED NATIONS, Sept 21 – World leaders meeting at the United Nations in New York denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Moscow-installed leaders in occupied areas of four Ukrainian regions announced plans to hold referendums on joining Russia in coming days.
In the apparently coordinated move, pro-Russian figures announced referendums for Sept. 23-27 in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces, representing around 15% of Ukrainian territory, or an area about the size of Hungary.
“The Russians can do whatever they want. It will not change anything,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Tuesday in response to reporters’ questions at the United Nations where leaders were arriving for a General Assembly meeting likely to be dominated by the war in Ukraine.
In a tweet, he added: “Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say.”
If the referendum plan “wasn’t so tragic it would be funny,” French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters ahead of the U.N. assembly in New York.
