Putin annexes four regions of Ukraine in major escalation of Russia’s war

Vladimir Putin has signed “accession treaties” formalising Russia’s illegal annexation of four occupied regions in Ukraine, marking the largest forcible takeover of territory in Europe since the second world war, Qazet.az reports according to TheGuardian.

The signing ceremony, held in defiance of international law, took place in the Grand Kremlin Palace in the presence of the country’s political elites, and comes on the heels of Kremlin-orchestrated fake referendums in the four Ukrainian regions – Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk.

Putin kicked off the ceremony with a lengthy, combative and angry speech in which the Russian leader issued new nuclear threats, promising to “protect” the newly annexed lands “with all the forces and means at our disposal”.

“The people have made their choice. An unequivocal choice … This is the will of millions of people,” Putin said, adding that the citizens of the four occupied regions will be part of Russia “for ever”.