Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday darkly hinted at the prospect of a nuclear war in an unhinged rant aimed at the “satanic” West, as he officially annexed four Ukrainian regions partially occupied by his beleaguered forces.
The Kremlin strongman vowed at a ceremony formalizing the annexation to protect the newly incorporated territories using “all available means” — and said Ukrainians living in the regions are “our citizens forever.”
“This is the will of millions of people,” he told hundreds of dignitaries in the opulent St George’s Hall of the Kremlin. “People living in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson region and Zaporizhzhia region are becoming our compatriots forever.”
At the event that Kyiv dismissed as a “Kremlin freak show” devoid of legal meaning, Putin delivered a 37-minute invective claiming the US of starting a “precedent” by using nuclear weapons against Japan in World War II.
The Kremlin strongman also alleged that the West has sabotaged the Russia-built gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea.
Putin claimed that the “Anglo-Saxons” in the West have turned from sanctions on Russia to “terror attacks,” sabotaging the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in what he described as an attempt to “destroy the European energy infrastructure.”
He added that “those who profit from it have done it,” without naming a specific country.
The Russian tyrant also accused the West of “sheer satanism” for turning away from “moral norms” and “religious” values. At one point, he asked his assembled cronies if they wanted “children to be offered sex-change operations.”
Putin’s scathing address was followed by the signing the treaty documents with the Russian-backed heads of the four annexed regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
They then all clasped hands and chanted “Russia! Russia!” in unison with hundreds of guests, who rose in a standing ovation.
The ceremony took place three days after the completion of hastily staged so-called referendums in which Moscow’s proxies in the occupied regions claimed majorities of up to 99% in favor of joining Russia.
Both houses of the Kremlin-controlled Russian parliament will meet next week to rubber-stamp the treaties for the regions to join Russia, sending them to Putin for his approval.
Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelensky responded to the annexation declaration by announcing that his country was formally applying for fast-track membership of NATO, which Russia views as a hostile military alliance.
In a video speech, Zelensky accused Russia of brazenly rewriting history and redrawing borders “using murder, blackmail, mistreatment and lies,” something he said Kyiv would not allow.
He said however that Kyiv remained committed to the idea of co-existence with Russia “on equal, honest, dignified and fair conditions.”
“Clearly, with this Russian president it is impossible. He does not know what dignity and honesty are. Therefore, we are ready for a dialog with Russia, but with another president of Russia,” he added.
Ukraine and Western governments have dismissed Moscow’s referendums as a sham, illegitimate, and conducted at gunpoint.
Kyiv has vowed to recapture all the lands seized by Russia and said that Russia’s decision to annex the territories had destroyed any prospect of peace talks between the countries.
Putin’s annexation celebration was overshadowed by news that Moscow’s army was on the verge of one of its worst defeats of the war after hundreds of Russian troops found themselves encircled in a key garrison.
The pro-Russian leader in Ukraine’s Donetsk province acknowledged his forces had lost full control of Yampil and Dobryshev, villages north and east of the strategically important city of Lyman, leaving Moscow’s main garrison in northern Donetsk “half-encircled.”
Retaking Lyman could open the path for Ukraine to push deep into one of the regions Russia is absorbing.
Earlier, at least 25 people were killed in a Russian missile strike that hit a convoy of civilian vehicles on the outskirts of the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office said another 50 people were wounded in the S-300 missile attack, which targeted vehicles that planned to ferry relatives back to safety from Russian-occupied territory.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Zelensky’s office, said four of 16 S-300 missiles that were launched had struck the convoy area, causing impact craters several feet deep.
The convoy of cars was assembling at a parking lot to try to cross into Russian-held territory. One checkpoint in the area has been open in recent days, allowing civilians to cross the front.
The impact from the missile strike had thrown chunks of dirt into the air and sprayed shrapnel across cars packed with belongings, blankets, and suitcases. Reuters reported that there were around a dozen bodies.
Plastic sheets were draped over the bodies of a woman and young man in a green car. A dead cat lay next to the young man in the rear seat.
Two bodies lay in a white mini-van in front of another car, its windows were blown out and the sides pitted with shrapnel. The corpse of an elderly woman lay nearby in a pool of blood, next to her shopping bag.
A woman who gave her name as Nataliya said she and her husband had visited their children in Zaporizhzhia and were preparing to cross back into Russian-held territory.
“We were returning to my mother who is 90 years old. We have been spared. It’s a miracle,” she said, standing with her husband beside their car.
Zelensky condemned the Russian strike in Zaporizhzhia, as well as recent attacks in Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk, calling it the work of a “terrorist state.”
Zelensky posted on his Telegram channel Friday that only “terrorists” would target civilians and accused Russia of trying to seek revenge against Ukraine for its “steadfastness” and to make up for its own battlefield failures.
He said the “enemy” Russia “cynically destroys peaceful Ukrainians because he lost everything human a long time ago” and warned that the country would answer “for every lost Ukrainian life.”
Pro-Russian officials said, without evidence, that Ukraine was to blame for the attack in Zaporizhzhia. Russia has always denied its forces targeting civilians, despite countless confirmed incidents documented by the United Nations and other international organizations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that any Ukrainian attack on the annexed territories will be viewed by Moscow as an act of aggression against the country’s sovereign territory.
The Kremlin spokesman wouldn’t comment on the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons, noting that Western statements about it have been “irresponsible.”
With Post Wires
