By JON GAMBRELL and HANNA ARHIROVA
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties Friday for an unlawful annexation of occupied Ukrainian territory in a pointy escalation of his seven-month invasion of Ukraine. Its chief instantly countered with a shock software to hitch the NATO army alliance.
Putin’s land-grab and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s signing of what he stated is an “accelerated” NATO membership software despatched the 2 leaders rushing even sooner on a collision course that’s cranking up fears of a full-blown battle between Russia and the West.
Putin vowed to guard newly annexed areas of Ukraine by “all available means,” a nuclear-backed menace at a Kremlin signing ceremony the place he additionally railed on the West.
Zelenskyy then held a signing ceremony of his personal, releasing video of him placing pen to papers that he stated have been a proper NATO membership request.
Putin has repeatedly made clear that any prospect of Ukraine becoming a member of the world’s largest army alliance is one among his purple traces and it was among the many justifications he has cited for his invasion.
In his speech, Putin urged Ukraine to take a seat down for peace talks however instantly insisted he gained’t focus on handing again occupied areas — maintaining him on a collision course with the Ukrainian authorities and its Western backers which have rejected his land-grab.
In a Kremlin ceremony on the ornate St. George’s Hall to herald the annexation of the occupied components of Ukraine, Putin accused the West of fueling the hostilities as a part of what he stated is a plan to show Russia right into a “colony” and a “crowds of slaves.” The hardening of his place, within the battle that that has killed and wounded tens of 1000’s of individuals, additional cranked up tensions, already at ranges unseen because the Cold War.
The European Union responded to Putin’s newest step with a joint assertion rejecting and condemning “the illegal annexation” of the 4 areas: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
The EU’s 27 member states stated they’ll by no means acknowledge the unlawful referendums that Russia organized “as a pretext for this further violation of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Ukraine vowed to proceed combating, and Zelenskyy introduced the “accelerated” NATO software, though it wasn’t instantly clear what that might imply, because it requires the unanimous help of the alliance’s members.
“De facto, we have already proven compatibility with alliance standards. They are real for Ukraine — real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction,” Zelenskyy stated. “We trust each other, we help each other, and we protect each other. This is the alliance.”
The Kremlin ceremony got here three days after the completion in occupied areas of Moscow-orchestrated “referendums” on becoming a member of Russia that have been dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a bare-faced land seize held at gunpoint and primarily based on lies.
But Putin, in a fiery speech on the ceremony, insisted that Ukraine should deal with the Kremlin-managed votes “with respect.”
After the signing ceremony of treaties to hitch Russia, Moscow-installed leaders of the occupied areas gathered round Putin and so they all linked fingers, earlier than then becoming a member of chants of “Russia! Russia!” with the viewers.
Putin additionally railed on the West, slicing an offended determine as he accused the United States and its allies of searching for to destroy Russia. He stated the West acted “as a parasite” and used its monetary and technological energy “to rob the entire world.”
He portrayed Russia as being on a historic mission to reclaim its post-Soviet nice energy standing and counter Western domination that he stated is collapsing.
“History has called us to a battlefield to fight for our people, for the grand historic Russia, for future generations,” he stated.
The separatist Donetsk and Luhansk areas in japanese Ukraine have been backed by Moscow since declaring independence in 2014, weeks after the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. The southern Kherson area and a part of neighboring Zaporizhzhia have been captured by Russia quickly after Putin despatched troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Both homes of the Kremlin-controlled Russian parliament will meet subsequent week to rubber-stamp the treaties for the areas to hitch Russia, sending them to Putin for his approval.
Putin and his lieutenants have bluntly warned Ukraine in opposition to urgent an offensive to reclaim the areas, saying Russia would view it as an act of aggression – threats that Moscow can again up with the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear warheads.
The Kremlin-organized votes in Ukraine have been an try by Putin to keep away from extra defeats on the battlefields that might threaten his 22-year rule. By setting Russia’s positive factors in stone, at the very least on paper, Putin seemingly hopes to scare Ukraine and its Western backers with the prospect of an more and more escalatory battle until they again down — which they present no indicators of doing.
Russia controls a lot of the Luhansk and Kherson areas, about 60% of the Donetsk area and a big chunk of the Zaporizhzhia area the place it took management of Europe’s largest nuclear energy plant.
The push ahead with annexation comes with the Kremlin on the verge of one other stinging battlefield loss, with experiences of the upcoming Ukrainian encirclement of the japanese metropolis of Lyman.
Retaking it may open the trail for Ukraine to push deep into Luhansk, one of many areas Russia is absorbing.
“It looks quite pathetic. Ukrainians are doing something, taking steps in the real material world, while the Kremlin is building some kind of a virtual reality, incapable of responding in the real world,” former Kremlin speechwriter turned political analyst Abbas Gallyamov stated.
“People understand that the politics is now on the battlefield,” he added. “What’s important is who advances and who retreats. In that sense, the Kremlin cannot offer anything сomforting to the Russians.”
Russia on Friday additionally pounded Ukrainian cities with missiles, rockets and suicide drones, with one strike reported to have killed 25 individuals. The salvos collectively amounted to the heaviest barrage that Russia has unleashed for weeks.
They adopted analysts’ warnings that Putin was more likely to dip extra closely into his dwindling shares of precision weapons and step up assaults as a part of a technique to escalate the struggle to an extent that might shatter Western help for Ukraine.
A Ukrainian counteroffensive has disadvantaged Moscow of mastery on the army fields of battle. Its maintain of the Luhansk area seems more and more shaky, as Ukrainian forces make inroads there, with the pincer assault on Lyman. Ukraine additionally nonetheless has a big foothold within the neighboring Donetsk area.
In the Zaporizhzhia area’s capital, anti-aircraft missiles that Russia has repurposed as ground-attack weapons rained down Friday on individuals who have been ready in vehicles to cross into Russian-occupied territory so they might carry relations again throughout entrance traces, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential workplace, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, stated.
The basic prosecutor’s workplace stated 25 individuals have been killed and 50 wounded. The strike left deep impression craters and despatched shrapnel tearing via the humanitarian convoy’s lined-up autos, killing their passengers. Nearby buildings have been demolished. Trash luggage, blankets and, for one sufferer, a blood-soaked towel, have been used to cowl our bodies.
Russian-installed officers in Zaporizhzhia blamed Ukrainian forces for the strike, however supplied no proof.
Russian strikes have been additionally reported within the metropolis of Dnipro. The regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, stated at the very least one particular person was killed and 5 have been wounded.
Ukraine’s air pressure stated the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa have been additionally focused with Iranian-supplied suicide drones that Russia has more and more deployed in current weeks, seemingly to keep away from dropping extra pilots who don’t have management of Ukraine’s skies.
Zelenskyy held an emergency assembly of his National Security and Defense Council on Friday and denounced the newest Russian strikes.
“The enemy rages and seeks revenge for our steadfastness and his failures,” he posted on his Telegram channel. “You will definitely answer. For every lost Ukrainian life!”
With Ukraine vowing to take again all occupied territory and Russia pledging to defend its positive factors, threatening nuclear-weapon use and mobilizing an extra 300,000 troops regardless of protests, the 2 nations are on an more and more escalatory collision course.
That was underscored by the combating for Lyman, a key node for Russian army operations within the Donbas and a sought-after prize within the Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in late August.
The Russian-backed separatist chief of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, stated town is now “half-encircled” by Ukrainian forces. In feedback reported by Russian state information company RIA Novosti, he described the setback as “worrying news.”
”Ukraine’s armed formations,” he stated, “are trying very hard to spoil our celebration,”
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Follow the AP’s protection of the struggle at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Source: www.bostonherald.com”