Moscow-installed leaders in occupied Ukrainian regions plan to hold referendums on joining Russia - a challenge to the West condemned by Ukraine and its allies that could sharply escalate the war.
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DIPLOMACY/POLITICS
* In an apparently co-ordinated move, pro-Russian figures announced referendums from September 23 to September 27 in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces, which represent 15 per cent of Ukrainian territory, or an area about the size of Hungary.
* Some pro-Kremlin figures framed the referendums as an ultimatum to the West to accept Russian territorial gains or face an all-out war with a nuclear-armed foe.
* Reframing the fighting in occupied territory as an attack on Russia could give Moscow justification to mobilise its two million-strong military reserves.
* US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington rejected any such referendums "unequivocally". French President Emmanuel Macron and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda both described the planned votes as "parody."
* EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc would not recognise the outcome of the referendums
* US President Joe Biden will try to rally the world against Russia's invasion of Ukraine in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, saying Moscow's war against its neighbour violates the tenets of the UN charter.
FIGHTING
* Ukraine launches a major counter-offensive in Kherson, where the regional capital is the only major city Russia has captured intact since the invasion.
* Ukrainian forces regained control of the village of Bilohorivka and are preparing to retake all of Luhansk province from Russian occupiers, provincial Governor Serhiy Gaidai said. The village is 10km west of Lysychansk city, which fell to the Russians in July after weeks of grinding battles.
* Reuters could not verify battlefield reports.
Australian Associated Press
