This is an attempt to lock conquered areas of Ukraine (4 Southern and Eastern districts) into Russia via sham referenda, and to deter Ukraine from efforts to re-take those areas. Evidently Ukraine army's success in Kharkiv was a big shock to the Kremlin Putin's desire to make permanent the conquest of 15% of a neighbor country in complete violation of the post 1945 order. While Ukraine has already struck inside Russia proper as well as occupied Crimea, Putin's conquered areas of Eastern and Southern Ukraine, calling them Russia creates a new situation. Advances by Ukraine troops to liberate such territory will, we're told, be met by any means necessary. The nuclear weapon threat, if we are to believe Russian commentators such as Sergei Markov, is directly against NATO countries, not about nuking Ukraine. Time for serious reflection in the Alliance about whether that's credible but Russian deployments support this idea. Serious reflection will also be needed in western countries about the level of support needed to help Ukraine against a significantly larger Russian army in 2023, now preparations for mobilisation and large munitions orders from North Korea & Iran are being made. The Russian mobilisation could bring significant new forces into being, but will likely take several months to do so. There will be big political and economic impacts of conscripting 300k troops, but legal steps to compel it are already being enacted by the Kremlin. Today's Kremlin moves are about trying to lock in territorial gains and bring this phase of the war to an end on terms to Putin's liking. This is about scaring Zelensky into abandoning the thought of recapture of those parts of Ukraine lost since 2014.