Putin announces Russia will annex four Ukrainian territories after sham referendums - POLITICO

"We will rally the international community to both denounce these moves and to hold Russia accountable," Biden said.

"I'm sure the federal assembly will support the laws of formation of the four new regions in Russia, four new subjects of the Russian federation," Vladimir Putin said in a speech Friday.

President Joe Biden on Friday strongly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration that four provinces of Ukraine will become Russian territory based on referendums that took place this week.

“We will rally the international community to both denounce these moves and to hold Russia accountable,” Biden said.

“I’m sure the federal assembly will support the laws of formation of the four new regions in Russia, four new subjects of the Russian federation,” Putin said in a speech Friday at the Kremlin.

During the ceremony, Putin said the four provinces — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — will be folded into Russia and will be protected by “all available means.” They will join the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed after its more limited initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

The annexations represent a violation of international law and the vast majority of nations won’t recognize the territory as Russian.

Russia will not betray it,” Putin said.

The expected pronouncement had been met with fresh warnings this week that Russia will be even more isolated internationally, amid fears that Putin will use the declaration as a pretext to escalate the war, claiming that the Ukrainians are now attacking Russian territory.

The truth is Russia is losing in Ukraine and their incompetent Generals are sending thousands to their deaths to please President Putin’s imperialist fantasy.”.

Proclaiming parts of Ukraine as now Russian with no international backing or legitimacy, Radakin said, is nothing more than “the invented reality of Putin, and the actual reality is that he’s declared these four territories as part of Russia, but he doesn’t even have control of those four territories.”.

“The United States and our allies and partners will continue to assist Ukraine in its fight to defend its territory against Russian aggression,” Blinken said ahead of the Russian announcement, deriding what he called a violation of international law

“The international community must unequivocally denounce this illegal land grab, and reaffirm our commitment to helping Ukraine defend itself,” said Idaho Sen