Kyiv, Ukraine – Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties on Friday to annex parts of Ukraine in defiance of international law, pledging to protect the newly merged regions “by all available means” in another escalation of the country’s seven-month invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded by saying that his country was submitting a “rapid” application to join NATO’s military alliance.
Putin urged Ukraine to sit down for peace talks, but immediately insisted he would not discuss returning the occupied territories – keeping him on a collision course with the Ukrainian government and its Western backers who rejected his land grab.
George’s hall to preach the annexation of occupied parts of Ukraine, 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 EU immediately responded to Putin’s latest move with a joint statement rejecting and condemning the “unlawful annexation” of the four regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia.
The 27 EU member states said they would never recognize the illegal referendums organized by Russia “as a pretext for this further violation of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
Ukraine vowed to continue the fight, and Zelensky announced the “accelerated” implementation of NATO, although it was not immediately clear what that meant, as it required the unanimous support of allied members.
“Indeed, we have already demonstrated compliance with the standards of the Alliance. It is real for Ukraine – real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction,” Zelensky said. “We trust each other, help each other, and protect each other. This is the alliance.”
The Kremlin ceremony 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.
But Putin, in a fiery speech at the ceremony, insisted that Ukraine should treat the voices managed by the Kremlin “with respect.”
After the ceremony of signing the accession treaties with Russia, the leaders of the occupied territories installed by Moscow gathered around Putin and all tied their hands, then joined in the chants of “Russia! Russia!” with the audience.
Putin also criticized the West, cutting off an angry figure and accusing 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 elections organized by the Kremlin in Ukraine were an attempt by Putin to avoid further defeats on the battlefields that could threaten his 22-year rule. By setting Russian gains in stone, at least on paper, 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.
The push forward with annexation comes as the Kremlin approaches 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 seems 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 Abbas Galiamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter turned political analyst.
“People understand that politics is now on the battlefield,” he added. “What is important is who advances and who retreats. In this sense, the Kremlin cannot offer the Russians anything satisfactory.”
On Friday, Russia also bombed Ukrainian cities with missiles, missiles and suicide drones, and one strike reportedly killed 25 people. The shots combined were the deadliest volleys Russia had launched in weeks.
This followed warnings by analysts that Putin is likely to indulge more in his dwindling stockpile of precision weapons and escalate attacks as part of a strategy to escalate the war to such an extent that it would erode Western support for Ukraine.
The Ukrainian counterattack deprived Moscow of control of the military battlefields. 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.
In the capital of the Zaporizhzhya region, anti-aircraft missiles were reused by Russia as ground-attack weapons rained on Friday people waiting in cars to cross Russian-occupied territory so that they could bring their family members back across the front lines, the vice president said. From the Ukrainian presidential office, said Kirillo Tymoshenko.
The prosecutor’s office said 25 people were killed and 50 wounded. The strike left deep craters and shrapnel shrapnel into the vehicles lined up for the humanitarian convoy, killing its occupants. Nearby buildings were demolished. Trash bags, blankets and a blood-soaked towel were used to cover the bodies of one of the victims.
Russia-based officials in Zaporizhia blamed Ukrainian forces for the strike, but did not provide any evidence.
There were also reports of Russian strikes in the city of Dnipro. Regional Governor Valentin Reznichenko said at least one person was killed and five wounded.
Ukraine’s air force said the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa have also been targeted by Iran-supplied suicide drones and increasingly deployed by Russia in recent weeks, apparently to avoid losing more pilots who do not control Ukraine’s skies.
Zelensky held an emergency meeting of the National Security and Defense Council on Friday and condemned the latest Russian strikes.
“The enemy is raging and seeking revenge for our steadfastness and its failures,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. “You will certainly answer. For every Ukrainian life lost!”
With Ukraine vowing to take back all occupied territories, Russia vowing to defend its gains, threatening to use nuclear weapons, and an additional 300,000 troops mobilizing despite protests, the two countries are on an increasingly confrontational path.
This was confirmed by the fight for the Lyman, a key node of Russian military operations in the Donbass and a coveted prize in the Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in late August.
The Russian-backed separatist leader in Donetsk, Denis Pushlin, said the city was now “half surrounded” by Ukrainian forces. In statements carried by the official Russian news agency RIA Novosti, he described the setback as “disturbing news.”
“Ukrainian armed formations are trying hard to spoil our celebration,” he said.
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