Russian President Vladimir Putin announced today in the Kremlin that the territory of the four Ukrainian states occupied by Russian troops will be officially included in the territory, saying that “there are four new regions in Russia”. Western countries, including the United States, do not recognize this result.
Russia is accused of intending to annex four regions of Ukraine including Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in eastern and southern Ukraine.
The four states held a referendum on joining Russia from September 23 to 27. The four local governments supported by the Moscow authorities claimed that the majority of the people supported joining the Russian Federation, but Ukraine and Western countries called the referendum a “scam”.
U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged that the U.S. will never recognize Russia’s claims to sovereign territory in Ukraine. The U.S. is ready to impose new sanctions if Russia annexes parts of Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin pushed open the golden doors of the Kremlin’s St. George’s Hall at regarding 3:18 p.m. local time and stepped onto the podium to deliver a speech.
He said that the people of the four Ukrainian states have made their choice to join the Russian Federation through a referendum.
“I believe that the Federal Assembly will support the four new entities of the Russian Federation…because this is the will of millions of people,” Putin said to the audience’s huge applause.
He also pointed out that the referendum result comes from the natural right of the voting people.
Putin also asked the crowd to stand up briefly to pay tribute to the soldiers killed in Ukraine, saying that the officers who died in the “special military operation” were Russian heroes “who died defending these lands”.
After Russia launched its aggression on February 24, recently in the four parts of Ukraine’s Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions, whether to secede from Ukraine has been launched. Join Russia’s five-day referendum. The referendum ended on September 27. The four governments supported by Moscow all claimed victory following counting the votes.
Both Ukraine and Western countries called the referendum a “hoax”.
The upper and lower chambers of Russia’s parliament, which is controlled by the Kremlin, will carry out a rubber-stamp procedure next week to pass a treaty for Ukraine’s four regions to join the Russian Federation, before handing it to Putin for ratification.
