Russia annexes Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on Friday the formal treaties on the accession to the country of the territories of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, following the results of the referendums held.

Earlier, the Russian president had recalled that in 1991 the elites decided to dissolve the Soviet Union without consulting the will of the citizens, which "became a national disaster."

In his speech, President Putin called on the Ukrainian government “to immediately cease fire and return to the negotiating table. Only this can be the path to peace”, he pointed out.

In that sense, he explained that in his country "we are prepared for it", although he clarified that "we are going to defend our land in every possible way and we are going to take care of the development of our people", in relation to the continuity of military actions .

The Russian president explained what he called his country's concern for the Russian population in Ukraine: "Our compatriots in Ukraine are an inalienable part of us."

Facing opposition from the United States and other Western powers, Putin said that "the West has been searching and continues to search all this time for a new opportunity to hit us, weaken and destroy Russia, which they have always dreamed of. To divide our state, confront peoples among themselves, condemning them to poverty and extinction".

Putin did not fail to refer to the most recent events on the European continent, the explosions in the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, and accused the Western powers of having "begun to destroy the European energy structure."

"The West has been searching and continues to search all this time for a new opportunity to hit us, weaken and destroy Russia, which they have always dreamed of. To divide our state, pit peoples against each other, condemn them to poverty and extinction." .

In fact, the Russian president said that the United States demands more sanctions against Russia, but "all this leads to the deindustrialization of Europe" and the increase of its dependence on Washington.

At the end of his speech, Putin signed agreements with the leaders of the territorial entities, Denis Pushilin, Leonid Pasechnik, Vladimir Rogov and Vladimir Saldo, the admission to the Russian Federation of the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as the regions of Zaporizhia and Kherson, respectively.