President Vladimir Putin is preparing to formally annex around 15% of Ukrainian territory, following a series of sham referendums in the east of the country. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has admitted mistakes were made in its drive to mobilize Russian army reservists to fight in Ukraine. Sergei petrikov, who served as Ukraine's deputy minister of justice between 2014 and 19, joins me now from Kyiv. Good afternoon to you, Sergei, many thanks for coming on the show. Now, Russia is annexing at least 90,000 km² of Ukrainian territory. Is there anything apart from violence that can stop this happening? Well, there's not much that we can do apart from tightening the sanctions for the Russian economy and the people directly responsible for this sham referenda. What I think is important is not only to consolidate the EU countries, but also have a consolidated position within the NATO countries. Whereas we still see this ambivalent position of turkey that has been helping Russia in their actions. And although turkey has explicitly condemned these shamra friend and will not recognize the annexation of the territory, we do believe that having a consolidated nature position more strongly reacting to that would be something that sends a clear signal to Putin that the further exacerbation of the situation will make him only weaker. And what about other countries like, for instance, I mean, could China and India be doing more perhaps around the idea of a gas prices? Well, absolutely. I mean, at the latest summit of the Shanghai cooperation organization in Samarkand, there was a clear signal, although not made publicly from China and India that they see the negative consequences on this war on their economies. And they urged Putin to stop it. And interestingly enough, instead of doing that, he just raised the stakes and declared him in Russia. So I think what the Western Allies could work on is further explaining to that two Chinese and Indian counterparts that the war in that Russia is waging is having a negative impact on the world economy. That will mostly affect the fragile economy in the east and they are the ones who are going to suffer. And in this way, they will change their position with respect to this war from this neutral positive to something that is going to be more negative towards the Putin's plans. Russia has made it clear that by annexing this territory, it now belongs to Russia and so any attempt to any attempt to retake the region would constitute an attack on Russia itself. Will that stop Ukraine fighting back? I mean, we know that pushbacks already begun will it stop now? It will not stop anything that you train does. Well, first point is that because of the successful counter offensive in hierarchic region, this region is not included in this sham referendum at all. Secondly, we already had certain limited attacks on Crimea that is now controlled by Russia and borderline territories of Russia that are used to supply the army in Ukraine. Which is did not have any response from Russia. So I mean, this is nothing new. We are having a full bore against Russia. We've been attacking their supply lines within the Russian territory. So from our perspective, there's shem referenda doesn't change anything for us. And we've also heard this nuclear threats from Russia before. So again, we're just being prepared for any scenario. And just confirming our resolve to end this war by winning it. But I mean, China has Russia has been very, very clear on nuclear weapons saying that if it's pushed beyond its limits, it will defend itself in that way and that this is certainly not a bluff. Do you think that the Kremlin will use nuclear weapons? And if so, what type would they be tactical weapons? I think it will really depend on the position of nature states. But also on the position of the other big states like China and India. And it seems that all of those states are really unwilling to see nuclear weapons being used for the first time since the Second World War. So I think as soon in a very clear signal to put in although even if it's done non publicly in a way that that does not show all of the cards, will be the only thing that will deter him from doing that, explaining