World

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday annexed four territories in Ukraine controlled by his army at a grand ceremony in the Kremlin and urged Kyiv to lay down its arms and negotiate an end to seven months of fighting.

The lavish ceremony at the Kremlin, a turning point in recent post-Soviet history, came hours after shelling killed 25 people in Ukraine’s southern region of Zaporizhzhia, one of the worst attacks against civilians in months.

Putin was defiant during a address to Russia’s most senior political elite, telling the West the land grab was irreversible and calling on Ukraine’s emboldened army to give up and negotiate a surrender.

“I want to say this to the Kyiv regime and its masters in the West: People living in Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are becoming our citizens forever,” Putin said.

“We call on the Kyiv regime to immediately stop fighting and stop all hostilities… and return to the negotiating table,” the Russian leader added.

The packed hall erupted to chants of “Russia! Russia” after the four leaders inked the deal, and Putin — rarely seen making physical contact since the pandemic — joined hands with his proxy leaders and was shown shouting along in unison on state TV.

Leading up to the ceremony Putin warned he could use nuclear weapons to retain control of the territories as Kyiv vowed the move would make no difference to its aims of kicking out Russian troops. 

Ukraine’s closest backer, Washington, said it would “never” recognise Russia’s authority in the regions.

– ‘Bloodthirsty scum’ –

But early on Friday, an attack in Zaporizhzhia in the south, killed at least 25 people as civilians were preparing to leave to pick up relatives, Ukrainian officials said.

Bodies of people wearing civilian clothes were strewn across the ground after the attack and windows of cars blown out, an AFP photographer said.

One man, 56-year-old Viktor, said his life was saved because he went to get a coffee.

“The waitress gave it to me. And there was a bang. She got scared and left the cafe. A few minutes later, there was another explosion. Now she is on the floor,” he said.

“I managed to hide. She did not.”

“Only complete terrorists could do this,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Bloodthirsty scum! You will definitely answer,” he added. 

But pro-Kremlin regional chief Vladimir Rogov accused Ukrainian troops of carrying out a “terrorist act”.

In central Moscow, at least 10,000 people were convening for state-organised annexation celebrations, with huge banners emblazoned: “Donetsk. Lugansk. Zaporizhzhia. Kherson. Russia!”

– ‘Nobody believes it’ –

“I’m happy if they want to join Russia,” Natalya Bodner, a 37-year-old lawyer told AFP. “They have more hope than we do”.

“It should have been done a long time ago,” a Russian serviceman Ildar Babaev from the southern region of Dagestan said.

“This is the right decision”.

The four territories create a crucial land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.

But the Kremlin said Friday it “needed to clarify” the exact borders of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — neither fully controlled by Moscow’s forces — that it intends to annex.

Together, all five regions including Crimea, make up around 20 percent of Ukraine, whose forces in recent weeks have been clawing back wins as part of a counter-offensive.

In Sloviansk, a city in Donetsk, a military medic who goes by the name of Coconut said the annexations were nonsense.

“If my neighbour comes to my house and announces that it’s his, nobody believes it actually belongs to him,” he told AFP.

In Kherson, Russian officials announced that Ukrainian strikes with US-supplied precision artillery systems had killed a senior security chief of the Russian-controlled region.

– Security Council vote –

A “pinpoint” strike by Himars hit his house, Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russian proxy administration said.

It was the latest of several targeted attacks on Russian-appointed officials in the region.

Ukrainian forces are also on the doorstep of Lyman in Donetsk, which Moscow’s forces pummelled for weeks to capture this summer. 

“Lyman is partially surrounded,” said Denis Pushilin, the pro-Moscow leader in the breakaway region of Donetsk, on social media. Two nearby villages were “not fully under our control,” he added.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden said the United States would “never, never, never” recognise Russian sovereignty over the territories set for annexation.

The four regions’ Kremlin-installed leaders formally requested annexation after claiming residents backed the move in hastily organised referendums that were dismissed by Kyiv and the West as fraudulent.

Ukraine has said the West’s only appropriate response is to hit Russia with more sanctions and to supply Ukrainian forces with more weapons to keep reclaiming territory.

The UN Security Council will vote Friday on a resolution condemning the referendums, according to France, the council’s current president, but it has no chance of passing due to Moscow’s veto power.

Zelensky is calling an “urgent” meeting of his national security council for Friday, his spokesman said.

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has complicated things for Latvia’s Russian-speakers, already caught between an attachment to country versus cultural and linguistic identity and who now fear becoming collateral victims of Moscow’s war.

“With the war in Ukraine, the attitude of Latvians towards their Russian-speaking fellow citizens has deteriorated considerably,” said Vladimir Dorofeev, a 48-year-old tour guide and member of the country’s minority.

The Baltic state’s Russian-speaking population is “being associated with Russia”.

The father-of-three — a Russian speaker born and raised in the capital Riga and married to a Latvian — was attending a rally by the Latvian Russian Union party.

Carrying signs that read “No to Assimilation” and “Stop Linguistic Genocide”, around 100 people protest a reform making Latvian the only language of instruction.

Dorofeev remains undecided whether he will vote for the Latvian Russian Union in Saturday’s general election.

According to opinion polls, the small party suspected of Kremlin ties is hovering at the electoral threshold, like other groups traditionally associated with the Russian-speaking minority.

That has not always been the case. Over the previous decade, most elections were won by the social-democratic party Harmony, which is backed by Russian-speakers.

But Harmony never found an ally to govern with, as other parties kept their distance. 

– Fear of deportation –

“The Ukraine war altered attitudes towards Russian-speakers in Latvia, especially among those with painful memories from the Soviet Union,” said Tatiana Efimova, a member of the minority.

“For some, everything associated with Russia and the Russian language is painful,” she told AFP. 

The 40-year-old logistics specialist said she does not feel discriminated against in Latvia. 

“I’m an ethnic Russian but I speak Latvian. I have Latvian friends and no one has ever said anything to me,” she said. 

Latvians “want to protect their language, their nation, their identity. There’s few of them, so it’s understandable.”

According to an opinion survey from April, support for Russia among Latvia’s Russian-speakers fell to 13 percent from 20 the previous month, while support for Ukraine rose to 30 percent from 25. 

The undecided remained steady at 47 percent, the research centre SKDS found.

Dominated over the centuries by Teutonic knights, Swedes, Poles, then Russians, Latvia gained independence in 1918 before finding itself under Soviet occupation in 1944-1990. 

Tens of thousands of Latvians were deported and replaced with Russians, noticeably altering the country’s social and linguistic mix. 

Today, the Russian-speaking minority makes up around 30 percent of the population of 1.8 million. 

– ‘Non-citizens’ –

After Latvia regained independence in 1991, the political class championed the model of a nation state built around Latvian national identity rather than that of a multicultural country, said Sergejs Kruks, an expert in culture and communication.

“According to this nationalist view, which still prevails today, anyone born into Russian culture by definition supports Putin’s politics,” he told AFP. 

In 1991, Latvia passed a law granting citizenship only to those who were Latvians before 1940 and their descendants, rather than everyone across the board. 

Since then, anyone hoping to acquire citizenship must pass a Latvian language and history test — a difficult feat for many Russian-speakers, especially the elderly. 

Unable or unwilling to meet that hurdle, some wind up as non-citizens who receive an “alien’s passport” without citizenship.

Non-citizens constitute nearly 10 percent of the population. They do not have the right to vote and cannot work in the public sector or become lawyers, notaries or pharmacists. 

Their situation has led the Kremlin to criticise Latvia, which does not hide its wariness of Russia — despite EU and NATO membership.

– ‘Kremlin-friendly fake news’ –

The Ukraine war has only further complicated things. 

“In Latvia, Russian-speakers are in a way collateral victims of the war,” said Miroslavs Mitrofanovs, co-chairman of the Latvian Russian Union. 

“Russian authorities untied the hands of Latvian nationalists who are now taking it out on us,” said Mitrofanovs, who before the war frequently appeared on Russian state television.

“They’ve banned the Russian language at schools and Russian television, they’ve torn down monuments to the liberators from Nazism,” he told AFP, referring to a Riga memorial celebrating the Red Army that was dismantled last month.

For Latvian writer Arvids Degis, this kind of narrative is marginal and tends to surface around election time.

“But it doesn’t stick and is usually ridiculed as ‘Kremlin-friendly fake news’,” he told AFP.

Iranian security forces opened fire on angry protesters as street violence sparked by the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini entered a third week on Friday, foreign-based opposition media reported.

Dozens have been killed in a crackdown on the protests that erupted when Amini, 22, died in custody three days after her arrest by the notorious morality police in Tehran for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

“Death to the dictator,” bare-headed women chanted in the northwestern city of Ardabil, said Iran International, a Persian-language television station based in London.

In the southwestern city of Ahvaz, security forces fired tear gas to disperse scores of people who streamed onto the streets jeering and shouting anti-government slogans, in another video shared by the channel.

Men braved gunfire as they stoned a police station in Zahedan, near Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan, other footage showed. AFP was unable to immediately verify the videos.

Women have defiantly burned their headscarves and cut their hair in the protests over Amini’s death, announced September 16, that are the biggest seen in Iran since protests in November 2019 over fuel price rises.

Amnesty International said Iran was intentionally using lethal force against the protesters, adding that without international action “beyond statements of condemnation” more people risk being killed.

“The Iranian authorities have mobilised their well-honed machinery of repression to ruthlessly crack down on nationwide protests in an attempt to thwart any challenge to their power,” it said.

– Order to confront protests ‘mercilessly’ –

Amnesty said it had obtained a leaked official document issued to the commanders of armed forces in all provinces on September 21 instructing them to “severely confront” protesters.

Another leaked document showed that on September 23, the commander of the armed forces in Mazandaran province, where some of the deadliest clashes have taken place, ordered security forces to “confront mercilessly, going as far as causing deaths, any unrest by rioters and anti-revolutionaries”.

The NGO said it had confirmed 52 deaths in the protests but the toll was likely higher. Another rights group, Oslo-based Iran Human Rights, said 83 people were confirmed to have been killed, while Iran’s Fars news agency has put the toll at “around 60” dead.

Amnesty’s warning comes as Iran presses ahead with an intensifying crackdown that has seen the arrest of many journalists, activists and other prominent figures.

Former Iranian international footballer Hossein Manahi was arrested Friday after supporting the protests on his social media accounts, state media said.

In a letter on Friday, Iranian football fans asked FIFA to ban their national team from this year’s World Cup in Qatar over the crackdown.

“Why would FIFA give the Iranian state and its representatives a global stage, while it not only refuses to respect basic human rights and dignities, but is currently torturing and killing its own people?” they wrote on behalf of the Open Stadiums campaign.

Security forces also arrested singer Shervin Hajipour, whose song “Baraye” (“For”) made up of tweets about the protests went viral on Instagram, the rights group Article 19 said.

His song, which racked up millions of views and prompted many to comment that it moved them to tears, has now been removed from his Instagram account.

Iran also arrested a woman who drew praise online after being shown eating out in Tehran without a headscarf in an image that went viral on social media.

“The security agencies contacted my sister Donya Rad and asked her to give some explanations,” her sister Dina tweeted. “Today, after going where she was told, she was arrested” and sent to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

– Outside forces –

The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 29 journalists have been arrested, including Nilufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, female reporters who helped expose Amini’s case.

The crackdown has drawn widespread international condemnation.

Demonstrations of solidarity with Iranian women have been held worldwide, and rallies are planned in 77 cities on Saturday.

Iran has blamed outside forces for the protests, and on Wednesday it launched cross-border missile and drone strikes that killed 14 people in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, accusing rebel groups based there of fuelling the unrest.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards pledged to carry out more attacks until the groups are disarmed.

The United States said one of its citizens had been killed in the Iranian strikes.

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A suicide bomber attacked an education centre in the Afghan capital on Friday where hundreds of students were preparing for university exams, killing at least 19 people, most of them young women.

The bombing happened in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood of western Kabul, a predominantly Shiite Muslim area home to the minority Hazara community, the target of some of Afghanistan’s most deadly attacks.

The bomber shot dead two security guards before entering the gender-segregated classroom, student Ali Irfani, who escaped the carnage, told AFP.

“Not many boys were hit because they were at the rear end of the classroom. The bomber entered from the front door where girls were sitting,” he said.

Akbar, another student witness, also told AFP that young women made up most of the casualties, with up to 600 people in the hall at the time.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast at Kaaj Higher Educational Centre, which coaches students for university admission tests. 

However, the jihadist Islamic State group has claimed previous attacks in the area targeting girls, schools, mosques and a maternity hospital.

A resident who ferried victims to hospitals said they saw body parts scattered across the floor of the hall.

“Many students were hit by shrapnel in their head, neck and eyes,” said Asadullah Jahangir. 

Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said 19 people were killed and 27 others wounded. 

A shopkeeper from the neighbourhood said there was a loud explosion and then crowds of students rushed out of the centre.

“It was chaos as many students, boys and girls, tried to escape from the building. It was a horrific scene. Everyone was so scared,” he told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Italian NGO Emergency, which operates a hospital in Kabul, said it had received 22 patients at the facility, including 20 women, two of whom had died. 

“The victims are all between 18 and 25 years old, and most of them were in the classroom to take an exam,” it said in a statement.

– ‘Shamefaced’ –

The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan last year brought an end to a two-decade war and a significant reduction in violence, but security has begun to deteriorate in recent months.

In April, two deadly bomb blasts on the same day at separate education centres in Dasht-e-Barchi killed six people and wounded at least 20 others.

Friday’s attack is a “shamefaced reminder of the ineptitude and utter failure of the Taliban, as de facto authorities, to protect the people of Afghanistan”, Samira Hamid of rights group Amnesty International said in a statement.

Afghanistan’s Shiite Hazaras have faced persecution for decades, targeted by the Taliban during their insurgency against the former US-backed government and by IS — both of which consider Shiites heretics. 

Families on Friday rushed to hospitals where ambulances arrived with victims, and lists of those confirmed dead or wounded were posted on the walls.

“We didn’t find her here,” a distressed woman looking for her sister at one of the hospitals told AFP. “She was 19 years old.”

“We are calling her but she’s not responding.”

Last year, before the Taliban returned to power, at least 85 people — mainly girl students — were killed and about 300 wounded when three bombs exploded near their school in the area.

No group claimed responsibility, but a year earlier IS claimed a suicide attack on an educational centre in the same neighbourhood that killed 24, including students.

In May 2020, the group was blamed for a gun attack on a maternity ward of a hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi that killed 25 people, including new mothers.

Education is a flashpoint issue in Afghanistan, with the Taliban blocking many girls from returning to secondary education. Islamic State also stands against the education of women and girls.

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