Turkey’s Erdogan renews threat to block NATO bid from Sweden, Finland
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed documents to formally seize four Ukrainian territories partially occupied by Moscow, escalating his failed seven-month-old invasion of the country.
Several European countries, including Sweden, Poland, Germany and Britain, joined the US in immediately condemning the move as illegal on September 30, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on the West to accept his country into NATO.
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The lavish signing ceremony to incorporate Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions into the Russian Federation took place in the Kremlin’s opulent white and gold St. George’s Hall in front of hundreds of members of the country’s political elite.
In a Speech before the signing ceremony, Putin claimed that the people of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya had “made their choice” to join Russia earlier this month in so-called referendums widely believed to have been carried out at gunpoint.
He claimed that they were now “citizens of Russia … forever”.
However, the signing ceremony changes nothing. Russia has no way to enforce the annexations unless it can win on the battlefield.
Putin hinted at the use of nuclear weapons to hold on to the four regions – which appear to be slowly slipping out of his hands amid a successful Ukrainian counter-offensive – and claimed Russia would defend them “with all the means we have”.
US President Joe Biden called the signing a “fraudulent attempt” to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory, which he said was a flagrant violation of international law.
He said in one statement that the United States will impose sanctions on the individuals and entities that provided political or financial support to the annexation campaign.
“Make no mistake: These actions have no legitimacy. The United States will always honor Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders,” Biden said.
Washington immediately imposed sanctions on hundreds of members of Russia’s legislature, leaders of the country’s financial and military infrastructure, and suppliers who support Russia’s military-industrial complex.
Putin claimed he was “ready” for peace talks with Ukraine but said the annexation of the four regions would not be on the table, a proposal unacceptable to Kyiv.
The four regions together with Crimea make up about 20 percent of Ukraine, including some of its most industrialized territories.
After the signing ceremony, Zelenskiy announced that Ukraine had applied to join NATO under an accelerated procedure.
Zelenskiy said Putin’s statements about occupied or partially occupied regions of Ukraine “joining Russia” were an attempt to steal what does not belong to Russia.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive
Putin rushed to hold the “mock” referendums and annexation ceremony to raise the stakes for the West amid a Ukrainian counter-offensive that has pushed back Moscow’s forces and raised the specter of a Russian defeat.
The West has armed Ukraine with powerful weapons that have decimated Russian forces, forcing Putin to take the unpopular step of partial mobilization.
By claiming he has annexed Ukrainian territory, Putin may be trying to justify his nuclear war by saying he is now defending “Russian land”, experts have said.
Putin’s threats may be “designed to ensure that the United States does not supply the more advanced weapons that Ukraine has persistently requested in order to mount a strong, successful counteroffensive this fall,” John Herbst, former US ambassador to Ukraine from 2003-2006. an analyst at the Atlantic Council said in a statement.
Putin’s decision on September 21 to call up 300,000 reservists has sparked protests across the country and driven hundreds of thousands of citizens to flee to neighboring countries.
SEE: The seizure of the Ukrainian territories has been condemned around the world. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the treaties had “no legal value”.
Putin tried to justify the mobilization and his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by claiming that Russia was actually at war with a West that is trying to “destroy” the country and its culture.
Speaking to mobilized citizens and their families, Putin claimed that the West had and continued to look for “new opportunities to pounce” on Russia and that they had “always dreamed” of breaking up the country and driving its citizens into “poverty and extinction “.
He argued that the West was now waging a “hybrid war” against Russia to maintain its global dominance and deprive it of its wealth, equating it to an attempt at colonization.
Analysts called Putin’s speech “absurd”, noting with irony that he condemned colonization while committing imperialist aggression on a scale not seen in Europe since World War II.
They also pointed out that rather than protecting citizens from poverty, Putin’s policies have set Russia on a path of economic stagnation for years to come.