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Annexation on paper, retreat on the ground
Summary
In the days around 6 October 2022, Moscow's legal claims over four Ukrainian regions ran alongside Ukrainian gains in the south and fresh strikes on Zaporizhzhia.
What does an annexation mean when the territory it covers is slipping away? That question hung over 6 October 2022, the day after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law formally annexing the Donetsk People's Republic, the Luhansk People's Republic, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia into Russia.
A legal act, step by step
The process moved quickly. On 4 October 2022, the Federation Council of Russia unanimously approved the annexation of the four regions, leaving only Putin's final signature. He signed on 5 October 2022. On paper, the matter was settled within days.
Facts on the ground
The military picture in the south pointed the other way. On 4 October 2022, Ukraine's 35th Marine Brigade recaptured the village of Davydiv Brid in Beryslav Raion, Kherson Oblast, as the ground offensive continued. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said that around 3,500 citizens had been freed from Russian occupation in recent days. On 5 October 2022, Ukrainian troops retook the strategic village of Dudchany on the west bank of the Dnieper after Russian forces withdrew.
So within a day of the signing, a village in one of the newly claimed regions had changed hands again, this time in Ukraine's favour. The annexation law and the advance were taking place in the same part of the country, and they pointed in opposite directions.
Strikes on Zaporizhzhia
On 6 October 2022 itself, Russian forces shelled residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, one of the four regions named in the annexation law. At least three people were killed and twelve others injured, and widespread fires broke out. Whatever the legal status Moscow claimed for the region, the shelling hit homes and civilians.
Why the contrast matters
The sequence shows a gap between declaration and control. Russia's legislative steps were formal and unanimous in the upper chamber; Ukraine's gains were village-by-village and measured in liberated residents. For international readers, the useful point is that the annexation was an act of law, while the situation in Kherson Oblast and around Zaporizhzhia was being decided by military action and by attacks on residential areas.
A domestic footnote
Kyiv also dealt with an internal matter on 5 October 2022: the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Ukraine fired his deputy, Bohdan Lvov, for holding dual Russian and Ukrainian citizenship. It was a small item beside the battlefield news, but it showed the state continuing to address questions of loyalty and citizenship in its institutions while the war went on.
