Putin illegally annexed Ukrainian regions as part of Russia

Written by John Gambrel and Hana Arhirova

Kyiv, Ukraine (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed treaties to annex more illegally occupied Ukrainian lands in a sharp escalation of his seven-month invasion. The Ukrainian president immediately responded with a surprising request to join the military alliance of NATO.

Putin’s land grab and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s signing of what he said was an “accelerated” NATO membership application has accelerated the two leaders on a collision course that is raising fears of an all-out conflict between Russia and the West.

Putin vowed to protect newly annexed areas of Ukraine “by all available means,” a nuclear-backed threat at a Kremlin signing ceremony where he sharply criticized the West, accusing the United States and its allies of seeking to destroy Russia.

Then Zelensky held his own signing party in Kyiv, and released a video of him putting pen to papers that he said were an official application to join NATO. He described this step as “our decisive step”.

Putin has repeatedly made clear that any prospect of Ukraine joining the world’s largest military alliance is one of his red lines and was among the justifications he cited for his invasion – Europe’s largest ground war since World War II.

In his speech, Putin urged Ukraine to sit down for peace talks, but immediately insisted that he would not discuss handing over the occupied territories. Zelensky said there would be no negotiations with Putin.

“We are ready for dialogue with Russia, but … with another president of Russia,” he said.

At a signing ceremony in the ornate St. George’s Hall in the Kremlin, Putin accused the West of fueling hostilities as part of what he said was a plan to turn Russia into a “colony” and “hordes of slaves”. The toughening of his position, in a conflict that has killed and injured tens of thousands of people, has heightened tensions, which have already reached levels not seen since the Cold War.

The United States announced sanctions against more than 1,000 people and companies linked to the Russian invasion, including the governor of the Central Bank.

On Putin’s annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions, President Joe Biden said: “Make no mistake: these actions have no legitimacy.”

The European Union rejected and condemned the “illegal annexation”. Its 27 member states have said they will never recognize the illegal referendums organized by Russia “as a pretext for this further violation of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Zelensky vowed to keep fighting, defying Putin’s warnings that Ukraine should not try to win back what it lost.

“The entire territory of our country will be liberated from this enemy,” the Ukrainian president said. Russia already knows this. He feels our strength.”

The immediate ramifications of NATO’s “accelerated” implementation were not immediately clear, as it would require unanimous support from all members. However, the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine brought it closer to the orbit of the alliance.

“Indeed, we have already demonstrated compliance with the coalition standards,” Zelensky said. “We trust each other, help each other, and protect each other. This is the alliance.”

Putin’s celebration in the Kremlin came three days after the completion in the occupied territories of “referendums” organized by Moscow on joining Russia, which Kyiv and the West rejected as a land grab at gunpoint and based on lies.

In his fiery speech at the ceremony, he insisted that Ukraine should treat the voices managed by the Kremlin “with respect.”

After the signing ceremony of the accession treaties with Russia, the leaders of the occupied territories installed by Moscow gathered around Putin and all tied their hands, joining in the chants of “Russia! Russia!” with the audience.

But Putin cut an angry figure and accused the United States and its allies of seeking to destroy Russia. He said the West acted as a “parasite” and used its financial and technological power to “steal the entire world”.

He portrayed Russia as on a historic mission to restore its post-Soviet superpower status and confront Western hegemony that he said was collapsing.

“History has called us into a battlefield to fight for our people, for the great historical Russia, for future generations,” he said.

The breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine have had Moscow’s support since declaring independence in 2014, weeks after Ukraine’s annexation of Crimea. Russia occupied the southern Kherson region and part of neighboring Zaporizhia soon after Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24.

Both houses of Russia’s parliament, which is controlled by the Kremlin, will meet next week to rubber-stamp treaties on the accession of regions to Russia and send them to Putin for his approval.

Putin and his aides have openly warned Ukraine against pressing an offensive to retake the territories, saying Russia would view it as an act of aggression — threats that Moscow could support with the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear warheads.

The illegal annexation was an attempt by Putin to avoid further battlefield defeats that could threaten his 22-year rule. By formalizing Russia’s gains, on paper at least, Putin apparently hopes to intimidate Ukraine and its Western backers with the prospect of an increasingly escalating conflict unless they back down — which they have shown no sign of doing.

Russia controls most of the Luhansk and Kherson regions, about 60% of the Donetsk region and much of the Zaporizhzhia region where it controlled the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.

But the Kremlin is about to suffer another battlefield loss, with reports of an imminent Ukrainian encirclement of the eastern city of Lyman. Recapturing it could open the way for Ukraine to penetrate deeper into Luhansk, one of the regions Russia is absorbing.

“It sounds pathetic. Ukrainians are doing something, taking steps in the real physical world, while the Kremlin is building a kind of virtual reality, unable to respond in the real world,” said former Kremlin speechwriter-turned-political analyst Abbas Galiamov.

“People understand that politics is now on the battlefield,” he added. “What is important is who is advancing and who is regressing. In this sense, the Kremlin cannot offer anything comforting to the Russians.”

Russia bombed Ukrainian cities with missiles, rockets and suicide drones, and one strike reportedly killed 25 people and wounded 50 more, the Prosecutor General’s Office said. Together, the rocket fire reached the heaviest barrage of bombardment of Moscow in weeks.

The raid left deep craters and shredded the humanitarian convoy, killing its occupants. Nearby buildings were demolished. The bodies were covered with trash bags, blankets and a blood-stained towel for one of the victims.

Analysts have warned that Putin is likely to shrink further in his dwindling stockpile of precision weapons and escalate attacks as part of a strategy to escalate the war and smash Western support.

The Ukrainian counterattack deprived Moscow of sovereignty on the battlefield. Its control of the Luhansk region appears increasingly shaky, as Ukrainian forces invade there, with a pincer attack on Lyman. Ukraine still has a significant foothold in the neighboring Donetsk region.

The anti-aircraft missiles that Russia has reused as ground attack weapons rained down on people waiting in cars to cross into Russian-occupied territory so they could bring their family members back across the front lines, Vice President Kirillo Tymoshenko, in the capital of the Zaporizhia region, said. From the presidential office in Ukraine.

The officials installed by the Russians in Zaporizhia blamed the Ukrainian forces, but did not provide any evidence.

There were also reports of Russian strikes in the city of Dnipro. The region’s governor, Valentin Reznichenko, said at least one person was killed and five wounded.

The Ukrainian Air Force said the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa were targeted by Iran-supplied suicide drones and increasingly deployed by Russia, apparently to avoid losing more pilots who do not control Ukraine’s skies.

Ukraine has vowed to take back all occupied territories and Russia has vowed to defend its gains, threatening to use nuclear weapons and mobilizing an additional 300,000 troops despite the protests.

This was underlined by the fight for the Lyman, a key node of Russian military operations in the Donbass and the coveted prize in the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The Russian-backed separatist leader in Donetsk, Denis Pushlin, said the city was “half surrounded” by Ukrainian forces. The Russian news agency (RIA Novosti) quoted him as saying that the setback was “disturbing news.”

“Ukrainian armed formations are trying hard to spoil our celebration,” he said.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/putin-illegally-annexed-ukrainian-regions-as-part-of-russia/