Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the documents at a lavish Kremlin ceremony on Friday amid threats to use nuclear weapons in self-defense. Along with the international community, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi also reacted strongly by condemning this move.
Ukraine also announced it will accelerate its bid for NATO membership as Europe raises alert.
Reconnected,
With a few strokes of the pen, Putin on Friday claimed to have annexed four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – where he had earlier held a ‘sham’ referendum condemned by the world.
After what Russian officials described as a ‘major’ speech, Putin said he had signed laws to absorb the new territories despite international condemnation.
He added that Moscow would now protect the newly annexed territories as if it were protecting Russia itself.
“We will defend our lands by all means at our disposal and do everything possible to protect our people. This is our great freedom mission,” he said.
Its earlier definition included the use of Russia’s large stockpile of nuclear weapons.
With a wry smile, Putin called on Zelensky to negotiate and end the eight-month war, saying all options were on the table, except for the return of the annexed territories that Russia voted in a hastily organized referendum. What was the “choice” of?
“The people made their choice, an unambiguous choice,” Putin defended the referendum, presenting it as “the will of millions” and promising to grant them Russian citizenship.
He also attacked Kyiv’s “real masters” living in Western capitals as he accused them of harboring plans to “destroy” Russia.
He even blamed “Anglo-Saxons” (Britain) for attacking the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic this week.
Increase
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described Putin’s penmanship as “the most serious escalation since the start of the war”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Kyiv is officially applying for fast-track membership of the NATO military alliance.
However, he noted that Kyiv is ready to negotiate with Moscow, but not with Putin – following the latter’s declaration that the annexed territories are not ready for negotiations.
Washington also responded swiftly, slapping the Russian central bank with fresh sanctions, among other sanctions.
US President Joe Biden says the US will “never, never, never” recognize Russia’s sovereignty over these territories.
Retaliation
The Kremlin’s nuclear threats have not deterred a broad counteroffensive by Ukraine, which is pushing back Russian troops in the east.
Kyiv’s forces are on the doorstep of the town of Liman in the Donetsk region, which Moscow’s forces fought for weeks before capturing this summer.
Putin has blamed the Ukraine war on the West and said simmering conflicts in the former Soviet Union were the result of his collapse.
Rhetoric based on his now-famous phrase that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a tragedy, and he has recently suggested that Moscow should once again expand its influence over the former Soviet region.
Kremlin-appointed leaders of the four regions that requested accession to Putin this week gathered in the Russian capital ahead of the ceremony.
Their near-simultaneous requests came as they claimed residents had unanimously backed the move in a hastily held referendum that Kyiv and the West rejected as illegal, fraudulent and invalid.
A fifth of Ukraine
Ukraine said the only appropriate response from the West was to impose more sanctions on Russia and provide more weapons to Ukrainian forces to reclaim territory.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the accession plans as “a dangerous escalation” that “has no place in the modern world.”
The UN Security Council will vote on a resolution condemning the referendum on Friday, but it is unlikely to pass because of Moscow’s veto power, according to France, the council’s current president.
After the Kremlin announced the timing of the accession ceremony, its spokesman said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called an “urgent” meeting of his National Security Council on Friday.
The four regions – Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and Donetsk and Lugansk in the east – form an important land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Together, the five make up about 20 percent of Ukraine, which the forces have been backing in recent weeks.
Ukrainian troops are advancing in the eastern Kharkiv region and recapturing the Donetsk region. Military observers say Kyiv’s forces are close to capturing Leman.
Moscow’s forces are retaliating along the entire front line, and officials in Kyiv said Thursday that Russian shelling wounded three people in the Dnipropetrovsk region, five in Donetsk and seven in the Kharkiv region.
Along with threats to use nuclear weapons, Putin announced the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Russians to bolster Moscow’s military in Ukraine, sparking protests and emigration of men abroad.
Putin on Thursday called for “rectification” of mistakes in the draft, as discontent grows over the often chaotic conscription push.
