Putin signs ‘accession treaties’ at Kremlin in defiance of international law

Vladimir Putin has signed “accession treaties” formalizing 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 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 “forever”.

Shortly after, Putin signed the “accession treaties” on a podium alongside the Russian-installed heads of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk.

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 and its western allies have previously said they would never recognize Russia’s claims on Ukraine’s territory, while the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said on Thursday evening that the annexation “has no legal value and deserves to be condemned”.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Friday said that Russia’s “illegal annexation proclaimed by Putin 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 a major escalation of Russia’s seven-month-old war and 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.

“I urge the Kyiv regime to stop all hostilities, stop the war … and sit down for negotiations,” Putin said in his speech on Friday.

Kyiv has indicated it will fight to reclaim all of its lands. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, promised a strong response to the annexations and has convened an emergency meeting with his defense and security chiefs.

A pop concert will be held in Moscow on Friday evening in Red Square, where a stage has been constructed with giant electronic billboards proclaiming “Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson – Russia!”

It was not immediately clear whether Putin would attend the concert, as he did a similar event in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea.

Putin’s annexations are widely seen as a response to growing military 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 mobilization 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 mobilized soldiers arrived in eastern Ukraine on Friday.

Putin’s decision to annex territories while mobilizing hundreds of thousands of Russians at home indicates that he is 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.”

Putin has previously cautioned he was not bluffing when he said Russia was willing to use nuclear weapons if Ukraine continues its offensive operations on the newly annexed Russian territory. While some politicians and nuclear weapons experts have dismissed the idea that Putin was willing to break the nuclear taboo, the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has said Putin’s nuclear warnings are “a matter that we have to take deadly seriously”.