Russia was even more diplomatically isolated on Saturday after President Vladimir Putin annexed four Moscow-held areas of Ukraine, with Kyiv condemning the move and pledging to retake the areas.
Putin held a grand ceremony at the Kremlin on Friday to celebrate the annexation, hours after shelling killed 30 people in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhia region.
“I want to say this to the Kiev regime and its masters in the West: the people living in Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia will forever become our citizens,” Putin said.
Washington announced “heavy” new sanctions against Russian officials and the defense industry and said G7 allies would support imposing “costs” on any nation that supports the annexation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy immediately called on the US-led military alliance NATO to grant his country fast-track membership.
He also vowed not to hold talks with Russia while Putin is in power.
US President Joe Biden condemned the ceremony in Moscow on Friday as a “sham routine” and promised to continue to support Kyiv.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg criticized the annexation as “illegal and illegitimate” but remained non-binding after Ukraine said it was bidding to join the western alliance.
The United States and Canada expressed support for Ukraine’s membership but shied away from promises to speed it up.
Turkey said on Saturday the annexation of Russia was a “grave violation of established principles of international law”.
– AKW chief arrested –
Despite warnings from Putin ahead of the annexation that he could use nuclear weapons to defend the conquered territories, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv will “continue to liberate our country and our people”.
Kuleba also said Ukraine has taken the annexations to the International Court of Justice, urging the court in The Hague to hear the case “as soon as possible”.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Friday that Washington would announce an “immediate” new arms shipment to Kyiv next week.
Sullivan also said that while there was a “risk” that Putin would use nuclear weapons, there was no indication he would do so immediately.
Hours before the annexation ceremony, an attack in Zaporizhia in the south killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens as civilians prepared to pick up relatives, Ukrainian officials said.
Plainclothes bodies were scattered on the ground after the attack and windows of cars were blown out.
On Saturday, Ukraine’s nuclear agency said a “Russian patrol” had arrested the general director of the Moscow-held Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
Ihor Murashov was arrested on Friday as he was leaving the plant and blindfolded “herded in an unknown direction,” Energoatom said.
Zaporizhzhia – Europe’s largest nuclear power plant – has been at the center of tensions in recent weeks after Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of waging strikes at and near the plant, stoking fears of a nuclear disaster.
– Crucial Land Corridor –
The four annexed territories form a crucial land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Together, the five regions make up about 20 percent of Ukraine, where forces have retaken areas in recent weeks.
Zelenskyy welcomed the “significant results” of Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the east on Friday.
Ukrainian forces stood on Lyman’s doorstep in Donetsk, which Moscow’s forces pounded for weeks this summer to capture.
“Lyman is partially surrounded,” said Denis Pushilin, the pro-Moscow leader in Donetsk, later adding on social media that Russian forces were holding out “with the last of their strength.”
Russia on Friday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the regions’ annexation, while China, India, Brazil and Gabon abstained.
Though Russia’s veto was secure, Western powers had hoped to demonstrate Moscow’s growing isolation on the world stage, and will now take the condemnation effort to the General Assembly, where every nation has a voice and no one can snuff a resolution.
At a UNESCO meeting in Mexico City on Friday, representatives from dozens of countries fell silent as Russia took the floor and symbolically condemned the invasion of Ukraine.
