What happened today in brief — 19 September

The Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” public chambers asked the “republics’ heads”, Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik respectively, to urgently conduct referendums on the “republics” joining the Russian Federation. Representatives of the “LPR” public chamber think that becoming a part of Russia will protect the “republic”’s safety and present new opportunities for return to peacetime. “We want for there to be a Russian border between us and Ukraine. We want to once again become a part of one great Motherland — Russia. The Donbas population has earned this,” chairman of the “DPR” chamber Alexander Kofman said.

Village Bilohorivka in the Luhansk region passed under the complete control of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said the Luhansk region administration head Serhiy Haidai. He added that the Russian servicemen are preparing to defend the occupied territories, which is why Ukraine’s army will not be able to seize the occupied territories at once.

The industrial zone of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, located in Ukraine’s city of Yuzhnoukrainsk, Mykolaiv region, was attacked by the Russian forces with missiles on 19 September. Enerhoatom called for immediate stop of “nuclear terrorism acts”.

The Moscow City Court reduced the sentence of 61-years-old Moscow legislator Alexey Gorinov by one month — from seven years to six years and 11 months — over charges for “spreading fake news about the Russian army”. In August, Gorinov’s lawyer Katerina Tertukhina reported that the legislator had fallen ill while placed in a pre-trial detention centre, but he was neither examined properly nor given a diagnosis. Gorinov’s alleged crime was referring to the invasion of Ukraine as “war” rather than “a special military operation” and speaking about children killed in Ukraine during a legislature meeting.

The Russian city of Chelyabinsk's district court sentenced anarchists Dmitry Tsibukovsky and Anastasia Safonova, his wife, to one year and nine months of penal colony each in regards to the case on displaying a banner stating “FSB is the biggest terrorist” on the territory of the Federal Security Service (FSB) building. The prosecutor previously asked for 5 years for each. The defendants were accused of hooliganism on the basis of political hatred.