Russia announced that the decision to join the four regions of Ukraine will take place tomorrow, Friday, after referendums denounced by Kyiv and its allies, while fighting escalates in the Donetsk region amid mutual shelling that has caused civilian casualties.
The Kremlin said today that President Vladimir Putin will participate in the signing ceremony of accession agreements for new regions tomorrow, and will deliver an important speech.
On the other hand, the Russian RIA Novosti news agency quoted one of the representatives that the State Duma will hold a session tomorrow in the presence of Putin.
It comes after Moscow announced that an overwhelming majority of the population in the areas under Russian control in the Donetsk and Lugansk provinces of the Donbass region (east), Kherson (south) and Zaporizhia (southeast) supported joining Russia after referendums described by Ukraine and Western powers as illegitimate.
On the other hand, the heads of the four pro-Moscow administrations in Ukraine arrived last night in Moscow after they formally asked President Putin yesterday to annex their regions to the Russian Federation, based on the results of referendums.
Kirill Strimosov, deputy head of the Kherson Provincial Administration, explained - via the Telegram application - that the leaders of the regions that witnessed the referendums arrived in Moscow to "make a historic decision."
threat of sanctions
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the referendums organized by Russia as a farce.
For its part, the United States and the European Union threatened to impose new sanctions on Russia in response to these referendums.
Washington also announced that it will provide additional military support to Ukraine with more than one billion dollars, including 18 missile launchers and hundreds of other vehicles and drones.
In return, Moscow said the four Ukrainian regions had made a "conscious and free choice" in favor of joining Russia.
The Russian leadership had warned that it would consider the attack on these regions after its secession from Ukraine an attack on Moscow, and threatened to resort to nuclear weapons.
Two Ukrainian soldiers in a fortified position in the Donetsk region (French)
Battles and casualties
On the ground, battles are taking place in the vicinity of several cities in Donetsk (eastern Ukraine), such as Kramatorsk, Lyman and Bakhmut, amid mutual shelling that has killed civilians.
And field sources told Al Jazeera that the Ukrainian army is still advancing in the Lyman axis, north of Donetsk Province, as part of a recent counter-offensive to restore the city.
According to the sources, the Ukrainian army was able to tighten control over the town of Kolodiazy, north of Lyman, after advancing further in the vicinity of the town of Dolina, which it had taken over earlier, and used large military reinforcements for this axis.
On the other hand, Donetsk forces loyal to Russia announced the killing of 40 Ukrainian soldiers and the destruction of a tank and 3 armored vehicles during a day of battles.
In the neighboring Lugansk region, the pro-Russian authorities said that at least 30 civilians were killed in Ukrainian shelling on convoys of displaced people from the city of Kobyansk in the Kharkiv province towards Russian territory.
In the context of the ongoing battles in the Donbass, Al-Jazeera correspondent reported that the cities of Kramatorsk, Bakhmut, Soledar and Korakhova in Donetsk were subjected to Russian bombing, pointing to the deaths and injuries in simultaneous bombing of a residential community in the Dnipro district of eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian governor of Donetsk also announced that 6 civilians were killed during the bombing that targeted separate areas in the region yesterday.
On the other hand, the pro-Russian Mayor of Donetsk stated that a civilian was killed in Ukrainian artillery shelling on the city of Donetsk, while the pro-Russian Donetsk forces stated that the Ukrainian army bombed 9 residential areas under its control with 165 shells during the last 24 hours.
In the Kharkiv Province (northeast) - which was recently retaken by Ukrainian forces - Al-Jazeera correspondent quoted the governor of the province as saying that the Russian forces continued to bombard the lands adjacent to the line of contact and border areas, noting that 7 people were wounded in the Kobyansk region and a man was injured in a mine explosion in the Izyum region.
In the south, Al-Jazeera correspondent reported that a missile strike targeted the city of Mykolaiv, causing damage to the history museum in the city.
Al-Jazeera correspondent in Ukraine also reported the deaths and injuries as a result of Russian missile strikes targeting several areas in the Dnipro region (eastern Ukraine).