KYIV, Ukraine (AP) \u2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday insisted that the residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed a year ago \u201cmade their choice \u2014 to be with their Fatherland.\u201dIn an address released in the early hours to mark the first anniversary of the annexation, Putin insisted that it was carried out \u201cin full accordance with international norms.\u201d He also claimed that residents of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions had again expressed their desire to be part of Russia in local elections earlier this month. Russia\u2019s Central Election Commission said the country\u2019s ruling party won the most votes.<\/p>The West has denounced both the referendum votes carried out last year and the recent ballots as a sham. The votes were held as Russian authorities attempted to tighten their grip on territories Moscow illegally annexed a year ago and still does not fully control.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n A concert was held in Red Square on Friday to mark the anniversary, but Putin did not participate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The address came after Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry said Friday it would enlist 130,000 men for compulsory military service this fall, beginning Oct. 1, in most regions of the country. It announced it would for the first time begin enlisting residents of the annexed territories as part of its twice-yearly military conscription campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia says conscripts are not deployed to what it calls its \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine, or to serve in the annexed territories. However, after their service, conscripts automatically become reservists, and Russia has previously deployed reservists to Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Ukraine, EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell referenced the anniversary of the regions being \u201cillegally annexed\u201d by Russia in a video recorded during an unannounced visit to the Black Sea port city of Odesa on Saturday. Speaking from the city\u2019s Transfiguration Cathedral, severely damaged in a Russian missile strike in July, Borrell reiterated the EU\u2019s support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOdesa is a beautiful historic city. It should be in the headlines for its vibrant culture and spirit. Instead, it marks the news as frequent target of Putin\u2019s war,\u201d the EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy chief wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The address came after Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry said Friday it would enlist 130,000 men for compulsory military service this fall, beginning Oct. 1, in most regions of the country. It announced it would for the first time begin enlisting residents of the annexed territories as part of its twice-yearly military conscription campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia says conscripts are not deployed to what it calls its \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine, or to serve in the annexed territories. However, after their service, conscripts automatically become reservists, and Russia has previously deployed reservists to Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Ukraine, EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell referenced the anniversary of the regions being \u201cillegally annexed\u201d by Russia in a video recorded during an unannounced visit to the Black Sea port city of Odesa on Saturday. Speaking from the city\u2019s Transfiguration Cathedral, severely damaged in a Russian missile strike in July, Borrell reiterated the EU\u2019s support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOdesa is a beautiful historic city. It should be in the headlines for its vibrant culture and spirit. Instead, it marks the news as frequent target of Putin\u2019s war,\u201d the EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy chief wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the governor of Ukraine\u2019s partly occupied southern Zaporizhzhia region, Yurii Malashko, said five people were wounded on Saturday in two missile strikes on the village of Matviivka, located on the northeastern outskirts of the regional capital, also called Zaporizhzhia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Air defenses shot down 30 out of 40 Iranian-made kamikaze drones aimed at the Odesa, Mykolaiv and Vinnytsia provinces overnight, the Ukrainian air force said Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vinnytsia regional Gov. Serhii Borzov said that air defenses shot down 20 drones over his central Ukrainian region, but that a \u201cpowerful fire\u201d broke out in the town of Kalynivka when a drone struck an unspecified infrastructure facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Romania\u2019s Ministry of National Defense said Saturday that a possible unauthorized entry into its national airspace occurred overnight amid the bombardment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It said the radar surveillance system of the Romanian Army detected \u201ca possible unauthorized entry\u201d into the national airspace of NATO member Romania, with a signal detected toward the city of Galati, which is close to the border with Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KYIV, Ukraine (AP) \u2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin o […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2832,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830\/revisions\/2832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}