Russia announces formal annexation of Ukraine regions

Vladimir Putin has formally annexed four regions in Ukraine, warning he could use nuclear weapons to retain control of the territory | WATCH

An attack on a frontline civilian convoy killed at least 25 people in southern Ukraine on Friday, just hours before Moscow officially annexed four occupied Ukrainian regions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin formally recognised Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk as Russian, at a grand Kremlin ceremony late on Friday.

He has warned he could use nuclear weapons to retain control of the territory that his forces mostly control, as the US leads Western allies in vowing “never” to recognise the regions as anything other than part of Ukraine.

Mr Putin said Russia was “not striving” to recreate the Soviet Union.

“The USSR is no more. We can’t bring the past back. And Russia doesn’t need it anymore,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a rally and a concert marking the annexation of four regions of Ukraine occupied by Russian troops.

“We are not striving towards that.”

Russia on Friday vetoed a Western bid at the UN Security Council to condemn its annexations of Ukrainian territory but found no support, with China and India abstaining.

Russia’s veto was a certainty but Western powers hoped to show Moscow’s isolation in its war and will now take the condemnation effort to the General Assembly, where every nation has a vote and none can kill a resolution.

The United States pushed through the draft Security Council resolution hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow had taken over four areas of Ukraine which held Kremlin-organized referendums on land seized by Russia’s military.

“This is exactly what the Security Council was made to do — defend sovereignty, protect territorial integrity, promote peace and security,” the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said at the start of the meeting.

“The United Nations was built on an idea that never again would one country be allowed to take another’s territory by force,” she said, later promising a General Assembly vote.”

Russia’s ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, complained that it was unprecedented to seek condemnation of one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council.

“Do you seriously expect Russia to consider and support such a draft? And if not, then it turns out that you are intentionally pushing us to use the right of the veto in order to then wax lyrical about Russia abusing this right,” Nebenzia said.

The resolution, co-sponsored by the United States and Albania, would have condemned the “illegal” referendums held in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine and called on all states not to recognize any changes to Ukraine’s borders.

It also would have called on Russia to withdraw troops immediately from Ukraine, ending an invasion launched on February 24.

Allies not intimidated: Biden

President Joe Biden said the United States and NATO would not be intimidated by Putin and warned that the Western alliance would defend “every inch” of its territory if attacked.

“America and its allies are not going to be intimidated,” he said in remarks at the White House. Putin is “not going to scare us.” Biden then addressed the Kremlin leader directly, pointing his finger into the television camera as he warned against any attack spilling beyond Ukraine onto NATO territory.

“America’s fully prepared, with our NATO allies, to defend every single inch of NATO territory,” he said. “Mr Putin, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying: every inch.”

The US Congress on Friday approved a further national spending bill that includes $12.3 billion more in military aid for Ukraine.

“This new grant assistance is a further demonstration of US confidence in Ukraine and will support critical government operations and provide relief to Ukrainian people suffering under Russia’s brutal war,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

China urges ‘restraint’

Putin shortly before the invasion visited Beijing and agreed to a closer relationship. But China has stopped short of robustly supporting Russia, with US officials saying Beijing has refused requests to supply weapons.

“The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be safeguarded,” said China’s ambassador, Zhang Jun.

“China calls on all parties concerned to exercise restraint, refrain from actions that actually exacerbate tensions and leave space for a solution through diplomatic negotiations.” India, Brazil and Gabon also abstained. India has historic defense ties with Russia despite a warming relationship with the United States, which had privately leaned on New Delhi to support the resolution.

“Escalation of rhetoric or tension is in no one’s interest,” said India’s envoy, Ruchira Kamboj.

Among the notable affirmative votes were Mexico, which has put forward a peace proposal, and the United Arab Emirates, which had hesitated on US-led sanctions on Russia.

Britain’s envoy Barbara Woodward said the Security Council vote showed that Putin’s annexation is a “fantasy” that holds “no legal effect.” “Not a single other member of this Council recognizes Russia’s attempted illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory. Russia’s veto doesn’t change that fact,” she said.

“This is the largest forcible annexation of territory since the Second World War. There is no middle ground on this.” Immediately after the veto, the Security Council went into a session requested by Russia on gas leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines that connect Russia to Europe under the Baltic Sea.

This handout picture released on September 30, 2022 by the Danish Defence Command and taken on September 29 shows one of four gas leaks at one of the damaged Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

Nebenzia, the Russian envoy, spoke of NATO exercises and helicopter movements in the area and quoted US President Biden’s statement in February that “there will be no Nord Stream 2” — a reference to US pressure on Germany to scrap the project — if Russia invades Ukraine.

“You can’t deny the words of your own president,” Nebenzia said, denouncing “international terrorism” for the gas leaks.

Addressing the mysterious Nord Stream explosion, President Biden echoed other Western leaders saying it was “a deliberate act of sabotage.” He did not say who the United States believes is behind the attack but he described Russian allegations that Washington was involved as “disinformation and lies.” “We’ll work with our allies to get to the bottom (of) exactly, precisely what happened,” he told reporters.“At the appropriate moment, when things calm down, we’re going to be sending divers down to find out exactly what happened,” Biden said, adding that the United States is already working with allies to “enhance the protection of this critical infrastructure.”

Twenty-five killed in convoy attack

Only hours before Putin’s speech announcing the annexation, an attack in Zaporizhzhia killed at least 25 people as civilians were preparing to leave to pick up relatives, Ukrainian officials said.

“Twenty-five killed and about 50 wounded in an attack by the Russian military on a humanitarian convoy in Zaporizhzhia. Investigation launched,” said the prosecutor general’s office on Telegram.

Bodies of people wearing civilian clothes were left on the ground after the attack and windows of cars blown out.

“Only complete terrorists could do this,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Bloodthirsty scum! You will definitely answer.”

Zaporizhzhia Governor Oleksandr Starukh said Russia had launched rockets on a civilian convoy leaving the city centre. But pro-Kremlin regional chief Vladimir Rogov accused Ukrainian troops of carrying out a “terrorist act”.

“The regime in Kyiv is trying to portray what happened as shelling by Russian troops, resorting to a heinous provocation,” he said.

Municipal workers had climbed scaffolding in advance of the annexation celebrations to ­install huge banners emblazoned with Donetsk. Luhansk. Zaporizhzhia. Kherson. Russia.

“I’m happy if they want to join Russia,” Natalya Bodner, a 37-year-old lawyer said in central Moscow. “They have more hope than we do.”

The four territories create a crucial land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.

But the Kremlin said on Friday it “needed to clarify” the exact borders of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – neither fully controlled by Moscow’s forces – that it intended to annex.

Together, all five regions including Crimea, make up about 20 per cent of Ukraine, whose forces in recent weeks have been clawing back wins as part of a counter-offensive.

In Sloviansk, a city in Donetsk, a military medic who goes by the name of Coconut said the annexations were nonsense.

“If my neighbour comes to my house and announces that it’s his, nobody believes it actually ­belongs to him,” he said.

Mr Putin has blamed the conflict in Ukraine on the West and said simmering conflicts in the former Soviet Union were the ­result of its collapse.

“It’s enough to look at what’s happening now between Russia and Ukraine and what is happening on the borders of some other CIS countries,” he told security chiefs from former Soviet socialist republics. “All this, of course, is the result of the collapse of the ­Soviet Union.”

The rhetoric built on his now-famous phrase that the fall of the USSR was a tragedy, and he has recently suggested Moscow should extend again its influence over the former Soviet region.

In Kherson, Russian officials announced that Ukrainian strikes with US-supplied precision artillery systems had killed a senior­ ­security chief of the Russian-controlled region.

A “pinpoint” strike by Himars hit his house, Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russian proxy administration said.

It was the latest of several targeted attacks on Russian-­appointed officials in the region.

Ukrainian forces are also on the doorstep of Lyman in Donetsk, which Moscow’s forces pummelled for weeks to capture this northern summer.

“Lyman is partially surrounded,” said Denis Pushilin, the pro-Moscow leader in the breakaway region of Donetsk. Two nearby villages were “not fully under our control”.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden said the US would “never, never, never” recognise Russian sovereignty over the territories set for annexation. The four regions’ Kremlin-­installed leaders requested annexation after claiming residents backed the move in referendums that were dismissed by Kyiv and the West as fraudulent.

Ukraine has said the West’s only appropriate response is to hit Russia with more sanctions and to supply Ukrainian forces with more weapons.

AFP