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.
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 came on the heels of Kremlin-orchestrated fake referendums in the 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 would be part of Russia “forever”.
Shortly after, Putin signed the “accession treaties” on a podium alongside the Russian-installed heads of the four regions.
After signing the treaties, the leaders gathered around Putin, linking hands and joining chants of “Russia! Russia!” with the applauding audience.
Putin’s loaded address, in which he railed against a “satanic” west, was described by observers as his most anti-western speech to date.
In a firm response to Putin’s ceremony in Moscow, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, announced in a video address in Kyiv that his country was formally applying for fast-track membership of the Nato alliance, adding that Ukraine would not hold any peace talks with Russia as long as Putin was president.
Hours earlier, Russian forces launched a missile attack on people waiting in cars in Zaporizhzhia city to cross into Russian-occupied territory so they could bring family members back across the frontlines, killing dozens.
Ukraine has indicated it will fight to reclaim all its lands, while western allies have previously said they would never recognise Russia’s claims on Ukraine’s territory. On Thursday evening the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the annexation “has no legal value and deserves to be condemned”.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, described Putin’s land grab as the “most serious escalation” since the war began, while G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement that the annexation efforts “constitute a new low point in Russia’s blatant flouting of international law”.
At a session of the the United Nations Security Council, Russia vetoed a resolution condemning the supposed annexation, while China, Gabon, India and Brazil abstained from voting.
Meanwhile, the US imposed a fresh round of sanctions on hundreds of Russian individuals and companies in response to the annexation announcement.
More than 1,000 people and firms connected to the war effort were included in the US package, including Russia’s central bank governor, Elvira Nabiullina, a longtime trusted adviser to the president, and families of national security council members.
Hundreds of members of Russia’s legislature, leaders of the country’s financial and military infrastructure and suppliers for sanctions designations were named by the US treasury department.
In a statement, the US president, Joe Biden, said: “Make no mistake, these actions have no legitimacy. The United States will always honour Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.”
Britain also put sanctions on Nabiullina and said it was restricting Russian access to key UK commercial and transactional services as well as banning the export to Russia of almost 700 goods that are critical to manufacturing production.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the annexation declaration “won’t change anything”. “All territories illegally occupied by Russian invaders are Ukrainian land and will always be part of this sovereign nation,” she added.
Putin’s decision to sign treaties annexing the territories, some of which Russia does not fully control, is likely to shut the door on diplomacy for years to come. Taken together, Russia is annexing at least 40,000 square miles of eastern and southern Ukraine, about 15% of Ukraine’s total area, equal to the size of Portugal or Serbia.
Putin has repeatedly said he is ready to defend the territories using all available means, indicating he would be willing to resort to a nuclear strike in order to avert Ukraine’s efforts to liberate its sovereign land.
In a thinly veiled threat, he said on Friday that the US had created a “precedent” by using nuclear weapons against Japan at the end of the second world war.
A pop concert was held in Red Square in Moscow on Friday evening and a stage was constructed with giant electronic billboards proclaiming “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson – Russia!” In a short speech at the concert, Putin thanked the Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
Putin’s annexations are widely seen as a response to growing difficulties on the battlefield. Earlier this month, Ukraine pushed Russian troops out of the Kharkiv region, reclaiming areas seized by Moscow on the first day of the invasion.
Russia is now facing another significant military defeat, with thousands of its troops encircled in Lyman, a strategically important stronghold in the north of Donetsk province, one of the four regions Putin has declared part of Russia.
Oleg Tsaryov, a Ukrainian-born pro-Russia politician, wrote on social media: “The situation is very difficult in Lyman. Our guys may already be completely encircled tonight. The situation in Lyman is a bad backdrop for a celebration.”
In an attempt to slow down Ukraine’s offensive, Russia last week announced the first public mobilisation since the second world war, triggering a run for the borders by tens of thousands of men of fighting age and a new, possibly unprecedented brain drain. Pro-Russia officials in the occupied Donetsk region said the first newly mobilised soldiers arrived in eastern Ukraine on Friday.
Putin’s decision to annex territories while mobilising hundreds of thousands of Russians at home indicated that he was further raising the stakes in the war, said Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst and founder of R.Politik.
“The way that Putin speaks about Ukraine, it is clear that for him this is an existential problem. For him, if Russia doesn’t win in Ukraine, there won’t be a Russia,” Stanovaya said. “Russia is demonstrating that it is ready to use any means at its disposal to achieve its strategic goals. Including nuclear weapons.”