Here is the latest from Ukraine:

- Russian President Vladimir Putin will sign treaties claiming to annex four areas of Ukraine on Friday.

- Separatist leaders from Russian-occupied portions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are in Moscow to complete the procedure of Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory, Kirill Stremousov, a Russian-installed official from Kherson, said in a Telegram post.

- The White House has said it is working with “allies and partners to impose additional economic costs on Russia,” should annexation go ahead.

- United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said Russia’s annexation plans “cannot be reconciled with the international legal framework.”

- A total of four leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines have been reported, after the Swedish coast guard confirmed Thursday that there were two leaks in Sweden’s economic zone and two in Denmark’s.

More live updates here.

Here’s the latest from Ukraine.

- President Putin will formally move Friday to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine. In a grand ceremony at the Kremlin, he is expected to sign so-called “accession treaties” to absorb parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

- The U.S. and others have denounced the staged votes as a “sham” and warned of further diplomatic, economic and military consequences. “The United States will never, never, never recognize Russia’s claims on Ukraine sovereign territory,” President Biden said Thursday.

- Tens of thousands of Russians have fled the country to avoid conscription after Putin declared a partial military mobilization.

More live updates here.

U.S., allies to increase pressure on Russia following annexation

On the eve of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intention to formally annex four Ukrainian regions, the United States and its allies put the finishing touches on their plans to respond with measures designed to significantly increase the military, diplomatic and economic pressure they believe will eventually box Putin into an intolerable position.

New sanctions are to be announced on entities inside Russia, and those on the outside that contribute to its war effort, according to U.S. and European Union officials. Long-term commitments are being made to ensure the continued flow of Western weapons to Ukraine. Fence-sitting nations are being cajoled and pressured to take a stand against Moscow.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday repeated that “the United States does not, and will never, recognize the legitimacy or outcome of these sham referendums or Russia’s purported annexation of Ukrainian territory.”

Read the full story here.

Putin illegally proclaims annexation of four Ukrainian regions

Russian President Vladimir Putin is moving toward illegally annexing four regions in Ukraine, after staging referendums that were widely denounced.

In a grand ceremony that began in the Kremlin on Friday, he will sign so-called “accession treaties” for parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Read the full story here.

Missile strike on civilian convoy kills 25 in Zaporizhzhia

A wave of suspected Russian missile strikes killed at least 25 Ukrainians on Thursday as they waited to deliver aid and to collect relatives from an area that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to annex in violation of international law.

In Avtorynok, an old car market on the southern fringe of Zaporizhzhia, the regional capital, a group of civilians had waited all night to cross into the Russian-controlled territory. The broader Zaporizhzhia region is one of four where Russia orchestrated referendums in an attempt to legitimize annexation, but only part of the region is under Russian military control.

Read the full story here.

Zelensky pushes ‘accelerated’ application for Ukraine NATO membership

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine is applying for “accelerated ascension” into NATO, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday, in an apparent answer to Russia’s move to illegally annex four of the country’s partially occupied regions.

The remarks were more symbolic than practical: The speedy admittance of Ukraine to the alliance would require members to immediately send troops to fight Russia, under collective defense obligations.

Ukraine has long sought NATO membership, but Zelensky conceded in March that Ukraine had to accept that it was not going to be accepted into the Western military alliance, despite receiving security assistance from countries in it.

“De facto, we have already made our way to NATO,” Zelensky said in a Telegram statement.

Read the full story here.

Opinion|Alexei Navalny: This is what a post-Putin Russia should look like

What does a desirable and realistic end to the criminal war unleashed by Vladimir Putin against Ukraine look like?

If we examine the primary things said by Western leaders on this score, the bottom line remains: Russia (Putin) must not win this war. Ukraine must remain an independent democratic state capable of defending itself.

This is correct, but it is a tactic. The strategy should be to ensure that Russia and its government naturally, without coercion, do not want to start wars and do not find them attractive. This is undoubtedly possible. Right now the urge for aggression is coming from a minority in Russian society.

Read Alexei Navalny’s opinion here.

Kомментарий | Алексей Навальный: Вот как должна выглядеть постпутинская Россия.

Kак выглядит желательный и реалистичный конец преступной войны, развязанной Путиным против Украины?

Если вычленить главное, сказанное об этом лидерами Запада, то в итоге остается: Россия (Путин) не должны выиграть эту войну. Украина должна остаться независимым демократическим государством, способным защитить себя.

Это правильно, но это тактика. А стратегия должна быть направлена на то, чтобы Россия и ее власть натурально, без принуждения, не хотели начинать войны и не находили в них привлекательности. Это возможно, без сомнений. Сейчас импульс агрессии идет от меньшинства в обществе.

Прочтите этот комментарий на русском языке.

Here is the latest from Ukraine:

- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed two decrees late Thursday recognizing occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as “independent” territories, a step he has already taken for the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.

- The United States and its allies, which condemned the referendums as a “sham,” plan to increase diplomatic, economic and military pressure.

- Tens of thousands of Russians have fled the country after Putin declared a partial military mobilization last week.

More live updates here.

Ukrainian troops say they’ve surrounded Russian forces in Lyman, a key city in eastern territory that Moscow now claims as its own

Ukrainian troops recaptured villages near Lyman and encircled the city, Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for the Ukrainian armed forces, told The Washington Post on Saturday. A pro-Kremlin separatist leader in eastern Ukraine said Friday that the city was “semi-encircled,” describing Kyiv’s advances as “very unpleasant news.” The city sits on the edge of the eastern Donetsk region, one of the four territories now claimed by Russia and where separatists have held territory since 2014. Taking the city could help Ukrainian troops break into the Luhansk region nearby.

Read more here.

Analysis: As war fails, Russia’s authoritarian grandmaster backs himself into a corner

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech Friday, declaring his annexation of four Ukrainian regions, was likely the most consequential of his nearly 23 years in power. But rather than a clarion call to restore Russian greatness as he clearly intended, the address seemed the bluster and filibuster of a leader struggling to recover his grip — on his war, and his country.

By proclaiming the largest military seizure of territory since World War II, Putin left no off-ramp from his war in Ukraine, placing Russia and himself in acute danger. That raises a serious risk of escalation, and the prospect of a new, more perilous phase of the conflict, which Putin has made clear is not just with Ukraine but also with the United States and Kyiv’s other Western allies.

Read the full story here.

Russian troops withdrawing from Lyman, a day after annexation claims

Less than 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin proudly proclaimed the illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, thousands of his troops appear to be withdrawing from a strategic town there under Ukrainian fire.

Russia’s defense ministry said Saturday that its troops were withdrawing from the town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine, as Ukrainian forces surrounded it.

The retreat marks a major embarrassment for Moscow, a day after it claimed swaths of eastern Ukraine as its own — in the face of widespread international condemnation. Ukrainian forces advanced on the city overnight even as Russia put on a grand ceremony and a pop concert in Moscow’s Red Square celebrating the annexation.

Read the full story here.

Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska indicted for evading sanctions

NEW YORK — Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has been indicted on a charge of sanctions evasion, part of an ongoing effort by the Justice Department to hold wealthy Russians with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable for violating U.S. laws as Russia’s war in Ukraine rages on.

Deripaska’s indictment, unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, names other defendants accused of participating in his efforts to skirt sanctions that were imposed on him in 2018, when he was slapped with economic penalties by the U.S. government for acting on behalf of a Russian official and for operating in Russia’s energy sector.

Federal prosecutors argue that Deripaska, 52, skirted sanctions to conduct business in the United States by using intermediaries for transactions, including those related to a set of properties he indirectly owns, including a 23,000-square-foot Embassy Row mansion.

Read the full story here.

Here is the latest from Ukraine:

- The International Atomic Energy Agency said Russian authorities had detained Igor Murashov, the director of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for questioning.

- An IAEA official told The Post that the nuclear watchdog, which has some staffers on-site, had sought clarification from Russian authorities in response to reports that Igor Murashov was missing.

- Ukraine’s Defense Ministry tweeted Saturday that “almost all” of the Russian troops in Lyman had been killed or captured, suggesting that the city was under its control. A video recorded in the city shows Ukrainian troops throwing Russian flags from atop a government building, a ceremonial end to Kremlin-backed control of the area. A spokesman with the Russian Defense Ministry said its troops had retreated from the city after it had been encircled.

- Four missiles struck the Zaporizhzhia area overnight, its regional governor wrote Sunday morning on Telegram. There were no casualties, he said.


More live updates here.

7 key moments in Putin’s annexation speech

In an angry, conspiratorial address Friday, amid grand fanfare, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered the Kremlin’s justification for Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian territories, presenting an anti-Western worldview that accused “Anglo-Saxons” of neocolonialism and sabotage.

The half-hour speech was delivered in the ornate Georgievsky Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace, where Putin announced that Russia would formally incorporate Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions after staged referendums there.

“People have made their choice, an unambiguous choice,” Putin said.

The staged plebiscites came amid condemnation by world leaders and a Ukrainian military push that means Russia does not control all of the regions it now claims as it own.

Read seven key points and accusations from the speech here.

Videos show Russian fury and fear after Putin's mobilization

President Vladimir Putin’s mobilization of Russian men to fight in Ukraine has brought home the reality of war to ordinary Russian families.

For months, Russian voices of dissent were largely silent. Initial antiwar demonstrations were quickly crushed and there were only small displays of defiance in major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg. But that all changed after Putin’s announcement on Sept. 21.

Through angry protests, acts of violence and an exodus of more than 200,000 citizens, Russians are rebelling against the prospect of further escalation of the war and the steep price they will probably pay.

Read the full story here.

Russia’s annexation puts world ‘two or three steps away’ from nuclear war

President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of the annexation of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine signals the onset of a new and highly dangerous phase in the seven-month old war, one that Western officials and analysts fear could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in 77 years.

Putin has previously threatened to resort to nuclear weapons if Russia’s goals in Ukraine continue to be thwarted. The annexation brings the use of a nuclear weapon a step closer by giving Putin a potential justification on the grounds that “the territorial integrity of our country is threatened,” as he put it in his speech last week.

He renewed the threat on Friday with an ominous comment that the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki created a “precedent” for the use of nuclear weapons.

Read the full story here.

Americans captured by Russia detail months of beatings, interrogation

TRINITY, Ala. — Alex Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh evaded Russian forces for hours, slogging through pine forests and marshes in Ukraine to avoid detection. The U.S. military veterans were left behind — “abandoned,” they said — after their Ukrainian task force was attacked, and determined that their best chance of survival was to hike back to their base in Kharkiv.

What followed was an excruciating, often terrifying 104 days in captivity. They were interrogated, subjected to physical and psychological abuse, and given little food or clean water, Drueke and Huynh recalled. Initially, they were taken into Russia, to a detention complex dotted with tents and ringed by barbed wire, they said. Their captors later moved them, first to a “black site” where the beatings worsened, Drueke said, and then to what they called a more traditional prison run by Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Read the full story here.

Here is the latest from Ukraine:

- Russia’s parliament is expected to approve the so-called treaties on annexation Monday and Tuesday, after which Russia will consider the annexation of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk to be complete. Western leaders have referred to orchestrated annexation votes as a “sham.”

- Annexation means Donetsk and Luhansk forces would be incorporated into the Russian military, the Russian ruble would be introduced, and Ukrainians could become Russian citizens, after an oath of loyalty to Russia, said the chairman of the State Duma committee on construction and legislation.

- Ukraine celebrated retaking the town of Lyman, which Russian troops used as a key logistics hub in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region since their arrival this spring.

- U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday cautioned Russia against following through with escalatory nuclear threats, which he said were “irresponsible.”

More live updates here.