In defiance of international law, President Vladimir Putin has signed treaties absorbing occupied regions of Ukraine into Russia. Most governments have declared the move illegal.
In a speech at the signing ceremony, Putin warned the West that the people of four Moscow-occupied Ukrainian regions, Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, were "our citizens forever".
He also urged Kyiv to stop all military action in Ukraine. "We call on the Kyiv regime to immediatly cease fighting and stop all hostilities ... and return to the negotiating table," he said.
Putin added a long list of accusations directed at the West, charging that Western countries want to see Russia reduced to a "colony .... with the aim of maintaining unlimited power.
"I want to say this to the Kyiv regime and its masters in the West: people living in the Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions are becoming our citizens forever," Putin said, adding that they had made a "unambiguous choice" to join Russia in recent referendums.
NOW - People chant "Russia, Russia, Russia" after Putin signed documents to annex occupied Ukraine lands. pic.twitter.com/TObkBydkk4
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 30, 2022
On Thursday, Putin signed decrees recognising the independence of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. "Both decrees come into force on the day they were signed," according to Russia's official Tass News Agency.
Russia had already recognised the independence of the other two regions, the "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk on 22 February, just two days before Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
Before the ceremony, Tass quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov as saying that "Russia will view strikes on its new territories as an act of aggression." According to Russian law, the Donbass area is now officially Russian territory.
'Sovereign nation'
EU Council President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted that "the illegal annexation proclaimed by Putin won't change anything. All territories illegally occupied by Russian invaders are Ukranian land and will always be part of this sovereign nation."
The illegal annexation proclaimed by Putin won’t change anything.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) September 30, 2022
All territories illegally occupied by Russian invaders are Ukrainian land and will always be part of this sovereign nation.
US President Joe Biden said the United States would "never, never, never" recognise Russian sovereignty over the territories.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, said that Russia had "deliberately violated the Charter of the United Nations and the principle of the sovereign equality of States," reminding his audience that "on 16 March, the International Court of Justice stated that Russia’s aggression was illegal and ordered Russia to withdraw."
Atomic threats
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Putin has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear arms to change the course of the conflict or if Russia itself is threatened. The Kremlin's atomic threats have not deterred a sweeping Ukrainian counter-offensive, which has been pushing back Russian troops in the east.
Kyiv's forces are on the fringes of the Donetsk region, near the town of Lyman, which Moscow's forces pummelled for weeks before capturing it this summer.
Putin has blamed the war in Ukraine on the West and said simmering conflicts in the former Soviet Union are the result of the collapse of the USSR.
Putin has recently suggested Moscow should again extend its influence over the former Soviet region.
The UN Security Council is to discuss Russia's annexation of Ukraine's territory.
(With news agencies)
