President Vladimir Putin signed the annexation of four regions of Ukraine into Russia on Friday at a ceremony in the Kremlin in the presence of four pro-Russian leaders from the territories Moscow controls in whole or in part.
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The four leaders and Mr Putin signed the annexed documents before an audience of government officials, MPs and senators and other political figures in Russia, shook hands and shouted “Russia!” They shouted slogans. According to the room.
AFP
At the ceremony, Putin assured Friday that his country “does not aspire” to restore the USSR, despite the invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of four Ukrainian regions following a “referendum” condemned by Kyiv and the West.
“The USSR is gone, the past cannot be brought back. Russia today does not need it, we do not expect it,” Putin said in a speech to Russian political leaders in the Kremlin.
Putin said residents of the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, which are annexed by Russia, “will forever be our citizens.”
“Inhabitants of Lugansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia will become our citizens forever,” the Russian president told the country’s political elite. “People have voted for our common future,” he added.
Leaders of European Union countries “reject” and “condemn” Russia’s “illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian regions, the 27 said in a statement on Friday, accusing Moscow of “endangering global security”.
“We do not and will never recognize the illegal ‘referendums’ conducted by Russia as a pretext for this new violation of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity or their false and illegal results. We will never recognize this illegal annexation”, said the statement published shortly before the signing of the annexation measures.
“These decisions are null and void (…) Crimea, Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Lugansk Ukraine”, add 27.
“We call on all states and international organizations to unequivocally reject this illegal annexation,” they continue.
“By deliberately undermining the rules-based international order and blatantly violating Ukraine’s fundamental rights to independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity … Russia endangers global security,” they charge.
EU leaders reaffirmed “Ukraine’s right to regain full control of its territory against Russian aggression and to liberate occupied territories within internationally recognized borders.”
The EU will continue to provide Ukraine with “solid financial, military, social and economic support as long as necessary,” 27 stressed.
Listen to an excerpt from journalist Alexander Moranville on QUB Radio:
Mr. Putin used the opportunity to accuse the West of wanting to turn Russia into a “colony” in his speech at the Kremlin.
AFP
“The West is ready to do anything to save the neocolonial system that allows it to parasitize and actually rob the world”, denounced the Russian president in front of the political elite. “They want to see us as a colony,” he added.
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