‘Our citizens forever’: Russia's Putin declares annexation of four parts of Ukraine
Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions were partially seized by Moscow's forces during a seven-month conflict with Ukraine Russia declared the annexations after holding what it called referendums in occupied areas of Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin on Friday announced there are “four new regions of Russia” as he announced the formal annexation of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
The four regions were partially seized by Moscow's forces during a seven-month conflict with Ukraine Russia declared the annexations after holding what it called referendums in occupied areas of Ukraine. Western governments and Kyiv said the votes breached international law and were coercive and unrepresentative.
Putin also warned the West that the people of four Moscow-occupied Ukrainian regions were "our citizens forever".
"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.
Putin also urged Ukraine to sit down for talks to end the seven months fighting that started when the Russian leader ordered his troops to invade Ukraine. He said Ukrainian authorities should “treat ... with respect” the lopsided results of the Moscow-managed votes and warned sternly that Russia would never surrender control of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
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.
Ukrainian officials dismissed Putin's remarks, saying the future of Ukraine was being decided on the battlefields of Ukraine.
“We continue to work and liberate Ukrainian territories. And we don’t pay attention to those whose time to drink pills has come," Andrii Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president's office, said. "The army is working, Ukraine is united. Only moving forward.”
The event in the Kremlin’s opulent white-and-gold St. George’s Hall was organised for Putin and the heads of the four regions of Ukraine to sign treaties for the areas to join Russia, in a sharp escalation of the seven-month conflict.
The separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine have been backed by Moscow since declaring independence in 2014, weeks after the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. The southern Kherson region and part of the neighboring Zaporizhzhia were captured by Russia soon after Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24.
Putin and his lieutenants have bluntly warned Ukraine against pressing an offensive to reclaim the regions, saying Russia would view it as an act of aggression against its sovereign territory and wouldn’t hesitate to use “all means available” in retaliation, a reference to Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
The Kremlin-organised votes in Ukraine and the nuclear warning are an attempt by Putin to avoid more defeats in Ukraine that could threaten his 22-year rule.
‘Annexation is illegal’: European Commission
Head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, meanwhile, said that the annexation was illegal and that occupied land would remain part of Ukraine.
"The illegal annexation proclaimed by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin won't change anything," von der Leyen said on Twitter.
"All territories illegally occupied by Russian invaders are Ukrainian land and will always be part of this sovereign nation," von der Leyen added.
(With inputs from Reuters, AFP, AP)
