dpa
Kiev
Ukraine has called for more weapons from the West in order to retake territories in the east and south of the country occupied by Russian forces, as Moscow prepares to annex those areas.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry condemned the “sham referendums” held by Russia in the occupied areas under martial law. “Forcing people in these territories to fill out some papers at the barrel of a gun is yet another Russian crime in the course of its aggression against Ukraine,” a ministry statement said.
“The Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson regions, like the Ukrainian Crimea, remain the sovereign territories of Ukraine,” the ministry said.
Moscow hastily convened referendums in four Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions to justify a move to incorporate them into the Russian Federation.
A formal annexation of the four territories is likely to begin in the coming days.
Russia occupied and then annexed Crimea in 2014.
The Ukrainian ministry called for more military support, with Ukraine’s armed forces in need of “tanks, combat aircraft, armoured vehicles, long-range artillery, anti-aircraft and missile defence equipment.” Russia controls nearly 20% of Ukraine since launching its war in February.
