Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - September 29

Putin declares 'four new regions of Russia' as Moscow annexes parts of Ukraine
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/09/30/putin-declares-four-new-regions-of-russia-as-moscow-annexes-parts-of-ukraine.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday declared four new regions of the country shortly after signing a decree to formally annex parts of occupied Ukraine.

"There are four new regions of Russia," Putin said from the Kremlin in Moscow, according to a translation.

And the escalation curve gets steeper.

Ukraine applies for Nato membership after Russia annexes territory
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/30/ukraine-applies-for-nato-membership-after-russia-annexes-territory

A defiant Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced that Ukraine is officially applying for membership of Nato, hours after Vladimir Putin said in a Kremlin ceremony that he was annexing four Ukrainian provinces.

In a speech filmed outside his presidential office in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said he was taking this “decisive step” in order to protect “the entire community” of Ukrainians. He promised the application would happen in an “expedited manner”.

“De facto, we have already made our way to Nato. De facto, we have already proven compatibility with alliance standards. They are real for Ukraine – real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction,” he said. “We trust each other, we help each other, and we protect each other. This is the alliance. De facto. Today, Ukraine is applying to make it de jure.”

…

The alliance is unlikely to accept Ukraine’s imminent Nato entry while it is in a state of war. As a Nato member, fellow members would be compelled to actively defend it against Russia – a commitment that goes well beyond the supply of weapons.

Zelenskiy acknowledged this soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion. “It is clear that Ukraine is not a member of Nato, we understand this,” he said in March. “For years we heard about the apparently open door, but have already also heard that we will not enter there, and these are truths and must be acknowledged.”

Opinion | Alexei Navalny: This is what a post-Putin Russia should look like
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/30/alexei-navalny-parliamentary-republic-russia-ukraine/

If you can’t access the Washington Post article:
Jailed dissident Alexey Navalny says Russia must be transformed after war
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/30/europe/navalny-ukraine-war-intl/index.html

“The Russian elite over the past 23 years has learned rules that have never failed: War is not that expensive, it solves all domestic political problems, it raises public approval sky-high, it does not particularly harm the economy, and – most importantly – winners face no accountability,” Navalny wrote.

The solution, Navalny asserts, is to adopt a form of democratic government that decentralizes power, similar to what the Baltic states have employed.

“The threat to peace and stability in Europe is aggressive imperial authoritarianism, endlessly inflicted by Russia upon itself,” Navalny said. “Postwar Russia, like post-Putin Russia, will be doomed to become belligerent and Putinist again. This is inevitable as long as the current form of the country’s development is maintained. Only a parliamentary republic can prevent this.”

Russian troops forced out of eastern town Lyman (BBC)

Russia has withdrawn its troops from the strategic Ukrainian town of Lyman, in a move seen as a significant setback for its campaign in the east.

The retreat came amid fears thousands of soldiers would be encircled in the town, Russia's defence ministry said.

Recapturing Lyman is of strategic significance for Ukraine.

The town had been used as a logistics hub by Russia, and could give Ukrainian troops access to more territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

[...]

An adviser to Ukraine's defence minister told the BBC that recent gains around Lyman - following days of intense fighting - represented a "considerable success".

Russian fighters had been given the chance to surrender, Yurik Sak said, and would face better treatment as prisoners of war than from the Russian military leadership.

Man. Russia is absolutely fucked.

I have nothing else to say for today.

Edit: Okay actually - this Twitter thread by the ISW sums things up pretty damn well. https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1576785121948360706

NATO warns of mobilization of Russian submarine ‘Belgorod’, carrier of the Weapon of Apocalypse
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nato-warns-of-mobilization-of-russian-submarine-belgorod-carrier-of-the-weapon-of-apocalypse/ar-AA12vwWP

NATO has sent an intelligence note to its member countries warning of the mobilization of the Russian nuclear submarine 'K-329 Belgorod', carrying the Poseidon nuclear missile, also known as the Weapon of the Apocalypse, the Italian daily 'La Repubblica' reports Sunday.

The new submarine was launched in July and is now reportedly submerged in Arctic waters after its possible involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, according to several unofficial sources.

NATO fears that its mission is now to test the Poseidon super torpedo, a projectile capable of traveling up to 10,000 kilometers underwater and then exploding near the coast to cause a radioactive tsunami.

Ukraine tank breakthrough in south towards Kherson

There’s a scene in of the call of duty episodes, where you’re playing as a russian soldier, and if you don’t advance quickly enough, you’re own commanding officer shoots you in the back.

I wonder if that’s historically accurate, and a policy about to be revisited?

Refuting annexation, Ukrainian forces push on from Lyman toward Luhansk (Washington Post)

(This is mostly interviews with people in Lyman, from reporters visiting there.)

Just two days after Ukrainian troops claimed victory in Lyman, a city of 22,000 that the Russians had used as a vital transport hub in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, there was almost no military presence left there — a sign of how quickly Ukrainian forces are advancing after months of incremental gains, if any.

[...]

Though the Ukrainian military surrounded Lyman over the weekend, most of the Russian forces had withdrawn before then, locals said. A handful of enemy soldiers, however, might still be hiding in the surrounding woods.

After the Ukrainian military departed Lyman in its convoy of armored personnel carriers, a few Ukrainian soldiers implored reporters from The Washington Post not to enter the city because it could still be dangerous.

Meanwhile, on the northern approach to Lyman, soldiers from Ukraine’s 81st Air Assault Brigade were on the lookout for fleeing Russians. A burly commander said that his unit had arrested a local separatist in the nearby forest. “The unit operating here was from the area,” the commander said. “They knew the routes through the forest when they needed them.”