Zelensky addresses Russia's plan to annex occupied Ukrainian territories

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia’s planned annexation of four Ukrainian regions “will not mean what the Kremlin hopes for”, in an address on September 29.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a ceremony on Friday that will see Ukraine’s Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts annexed into the Russian Federation, the Kremlin has said.

It comes days after Moscow claimed that more than 90 percent of people in those regions had voted to join Russia. The votes in those four regions, none of which are completely controlled by Russian forces, has been decried by international bodies as a sham.

“Russia will not get a new territory of Ukraine. Russia will annex itself to the catastrophe that it has brought to the occupied territory of our country,” Zelensky said, according to a translated transcript.

“Russia will equate itself with the so-called “DPR” and “LPR”, and will completely finish off those institutions of normal statehood that still remained in Russia."

Ukrainian forces have continued to make gains in occupied areas of the east in recent weeks, including moving in on several key supply routes.

Partial English transcription:
"Russia will not get a new territory of Ukraine.
Russia will annex itself to the catastrophe that it has brought to the occupied territory of our country.
Depriving the entire Russian society of a normal economy, a decent life and respect for any human value will be the price for the fact that one person in Russia wants this war to continue.
This can still be stopped.
But to stop it, you have to stop that one in Russia who wants war more than life.
Your life, citizens of Russia.
Tomorrow is another day of our struggle, another day on the path to victory. Will it be special for us? It will be another day that will bring us closer to security and peace, to restoration of our territorial integrity. Because millions of Ukrainians fight and work for this.
A special meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, which I convened, will take place tomorrow. There will be decisions.
We know how to react to any Russian actions."

Credit: Volodymyr Zelensky via Storyful