INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russia has made little progress in absorbing four partially occupied areas of eastern and southern Ukraine that it annexed with great
fanfare in September, analysts told The Moscow Times, as intensifying military activity and political challenges hinder integration.Aligning
economies and political administrations has been stymied by local resistance, including assassination attempts on Russian-appointed
which came after widely disputed referendums in the regions, was rejected by Kyiv and widely condemned by Western countries and
with Russian President Vladimir Putin at an annexation ceremony
Mikhail Metzel / TASSWhile some officials likely prefer to avoid publicity, the websites of the pro-Kremlin administrations in Kherson and
this reluctance to be publicly identified as collaborating with the Russian-appointed authorities is likely a series of assassination
with a counteroffensive around Kherson
Independent Meduza news website reported Monday that the Kremlin was planning for how it will spin a military retreat from Kherson to the
Russian public.The most problematic territories to integrate will be those captured by Russia after the start of the invasion of Ukraine in
for the occupied Ukrainian regions being 40 pages long each, they offer few clues about the details of the actual integration
legislative assemblies, courts and prosecutor's offices in the annexed areas have not even been formally registered in the required official
since Russia seized the regions in late February and March
For example, Moscow started handing out Russian passports to locals in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in May,
and to people in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in June
Russian administrators grappling with the task of absorbing the occupied territories is Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in
