US official: Russia plans to annex parts of eastern Ukraine

A senior U.S. official is warning that Russia plans to annex much of eastern Ukraine later this month

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine -- Russia plans to annex much of eastern Ukraine later this month, a senior U.S. official warned, and the Mariupol steel mill that is the city’s last stronghold of resistance came under renewed assault a day after the first evacuation of civilians from the plant.

Michael Carpenter, U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said Monday that the U.S. believes the Kremlin also will recognize the southern city of Kherson as an independent republic. Neither move would be recognized by the United States or its allies, he said.

Russia is planning to hold sham referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that would “try to add a veneer of democratic or electoral legitimacy” and attach the entities to Russia, Carpenter said. He also said there were signs that Russia would engineer an independence vote in Kherson.

Mayors and local legislators there have been abducted, internet and cellphone service has been severed and a Russian school curriculum will soon be imposed, Carpenter said. Ukraine’s government says Russia has introduced its ruble as currency there.