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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Ryan Merrifield

US is 'decaying' and states wishing to join Russia will be considered, says Kremlin MP

A senior Kremlin politician has said any US states that want to break away and join the Russian Federation will be considered.

State Duma deputy Alexander Tolmachev was responding to an online poll that showed some Americans wanted their states to become independent.

He later said the US is beginning "to decay", while the EU is "bursting at the seams".

It comes after President Vladimir Putin ordered the relentless bombing of multiple Ukrainian cities this week, including capital Kyiv, killing at least 26 people.

It is Moscow's biggest aerial offensive since the start of the invasion in February.

Last month the despot illegally annexed four Ukrainian regions and vowed to use "all the power and all the means" at his disposal to defend them.

Hastily staged referendums saw Moscow's proxies in the occupied regions claim majorities of up to 99% in favour of joining Russia.

These were Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.

Ukraine and Western governments described those votes as bogus, illegitimate and conducted at gunpoint.

Referring to US states joining Russia, Tolmachev news site Podmoskovye Segodnya: "Such initiatives are a signal that the citizens of the United States are dissatisfied with their leadership and are ready to take extreme measures, up to secession, if the current policy of America continues."

Russian State Duma deputies applaud during the voting on annexation of four Ukrainian regions (Getty Images)

Mosregtoday.ru reported 80 percent of New Hampshire residents wanted to break away from the US.

A comment underneath the social media poll said: "Most of Oregon wants to leave Oregon. I support the big Idaho movement. And so should the people living in Texas, Florida, Idaho and everywhere in between. I support any state that wants to achieve statehood."

Tolmachev added: "It is important that voting takes place not on social networks, but officially and legitimately, as in the Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk and Luhansk republics, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces."

A search and rescue dog is seen during firefighters conduct work in a damaged building after Russian missile attack in Zaporizhzhia (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Cynthia Nicoletti, professor of law at the University Virginia School of Law, said state secession is unconstitutional.

She told Newsweek: "States can't unilaterally secede from the U.S.

"This was established both by the outcome of our Civil War and by the Supreme Court in the 1869 case Texas v. White ."

She added that Article I, section 10 of the Constitution "also prohibits states from entering into alliances, treaties, or confederations".

Russian President Vladimir Putin (Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

"I suppose theoretically it's an open question as to whether a state could secede with the consent of Congress or with the consent of all the other states."

Nicoletti said there is "some throwaway language" about all states possibly to allow one state to break away in Lincoln's First Inaugural Address and in Texas v. White.

However, she said it's "not a realistic scenario".

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