Vladimir Putin announces the annexation.
(Photo: via REUTERS)
Moscow Russian President Vladimir Putin has sealed the annexation of four areas in Ukraine, most of which are occupied by Russian troops. He signed the relevant documents at a televised ceremony on Friday in the Kremlin.
In a speech he had previously declared the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Cherson to be Russian territory. At the beginning of his speech, the Kremlin chief said: “There are four new Russian regions.”
Ukraine called on Putin to immediately cease all military action and return to the negotiating table. “We are ready for talks,” said the President.
However, he no longer wants to negotiate about the areas that have just been incorporated. The people in these regions are now “our citizens forever”. The government in Kyiv should respect the will of the people.
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With a view to a further advance of the Ukrainian troops, the President reiterated: “We will defend our country with all means.”
Kyiv speaks of “outrageous land grab”
The government in Kyiv described Russia’s latest steps as “outrageous land grabs”. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had already called an emergency meeting of his National Security Council for this Friday. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned of a dangerous escalation.
The annexation of Ukrainian territory violates the United Nations Charter and has no legal value, Guterres said. The sham referenda in the four regions could not be seen as a genuine expression of the will of the people. They had taken place during an armed conflict in areas under Russian occupation and outside the legal and constitutional framework of Ukraine.
After military setbacks at the beginning of September, Russia’s President Putin had the mock referendums held last week, in which the incorporation of the occupied territories into the Russian Federation was questioned.
According to election observers appointed by Russia, 93 percent of voters in Zaporizhia voted in favor of annexation, in Kherson 87 percent, in Luhansk 98 percent and in Donetsk 99 percent.
>> All current developments can be found in our news blog on the Ukraine war
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the votes the opposite of free and fair elections. Russia is trying to dictate a peace. Under threats and sometimes even at gunpoint, people were “taken from their homes and their workplaces and forced to cast their votes and put the ballot paper in a glass ballot box,” criticized Baerbock.
US President Joe Biden also made it clear that the United States would never recognize the four Ukrainian regions as Russian territory. “The so-called referendums were a farce, an absolute farce,” Biden said Thursday at a meeting with leaders of Pacific nations. “The results were fabricated in Moscow.”
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