Vladimir Putin declared four regions of eastern Ukraine to be a part of Russia in a major policy speech at the Kremlin on Friday.
He claimed that the people of the four Ukrainian regions he’s planning to annex made their decision after the so-called referendums. “The results are known, well known,” he says. “People made their choice.”
“I’m sure that the Federal Assembly will support the four new regions of Russia, four new subjects of the Russian Federation…because this is the will of millions of people,” Putin said, followed by huge applause.
So-called referendums were held in Luhansk and Donetsk in the east as well as in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south. The referendums were condemned as illegal by the West and legal experts.
President Putin said he wants everyone in Kyiv and the West to be informed that those in the Donbas region will become Russian citizens forever. Kyiv authorities should “take this expression of will with great respect,” he claims.
He sternly warned that Russia would never surrender control of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Russia controls most of the Luhansk and Kherson regions, about sixty percent of the Donetsk region, and a large chunk of the Zaporizhzhia region, where it took control of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
Both houses of the Kremlin-controlled Russian Parliament will meet next week to rubber-stamp the treaties for the regions to join Russia, sending them to Putin for his approval.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signs documents to annex occupied Ukraine lands "forever" during a ceremony at the Kremlin, formalizing Europe's biggest land grab since World War II https://t.co/Rs44aJ5ruJ pic.twitter.com/m2ecIqpccI
— Bloomberg (@business) September 30, 2022
West condemns Putin’s annexation of Ukraine’s regions
Earlier, President Joe Biden pledged the United States will never recognize Russia’s claims on Ukraine’s sovereign territory as the U.S. prepared new sanctions to be imposed once Moscow annexes new areas of Ukraine.
President Joe Biden pledged the United States will never recognize Russia's claims on Ukraine's sovereign territory as the U.S. prepared new sanctions to impose once Moscow annexes new areas of Ukraine https://t.co/6jgKcOjsLu pic.twitter.com/Vg3A3rNjNL
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 30, 2022
“Russia has escalated the invasion of Ukraine to a new level,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President said on Wednesday afternoon.
“We do not accept the sham referenda nor any kind of annexation in Ukraine, and we’re determined to make the Kremlin pay for this further escalation,” she said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Thursday that people in occupied regions of Ukraine had been taken from their homes and workplaces by threat and sometimes at gunpoint.
“This is the opposite of free and fair elections,” Annalena Baerbock said, “and this is the opposite of peace…it is a dictated peace,” she said.
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