Putin’s annexation bid in Ukraine triggers new sanctions, Western condemnation

The war in Ukraine lurched into a volatile new phase Friday as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees declaring the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, drawing widespread international condemnation and triggering punitive new economic measures from Washington and its Western allies.

Ukraine responded with a swift show of defiance, declaring that Moscow’s attempted territorial seizures would not stand. President Volodymyr Zelensky held a signing ceremony of his own, saying his government was submitting an “accelerated” application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“We are de facto allies already,” he said of Ukraine’s partnership with the West.

The United States and Group of 7 allies responded Friday to what they called Russia’s illegitimate move, issuing a new round of sanctions and warning other nations that they will be similarly punished should they support the Kremlin.

“Russia is violating international law, trampling on the United Nations charter, and showing its contempt for peaceful nations everywhere,” President Biden said in a statement condemning Russia’s actions. “Make no mistake: these actions have no legitimacy.”

Moscow’s self-declared land grab now means that a battlefront stretching hundreds of miles will now run through territory that Russia considers part of its motherland, and which Putin has threatened to defend with nuclear weapons if necessary.

Putin’s move comes against a backdrop of stinging battlefield setbacks in Ukraine and Russia’s first public military mobilization since World War II, announced last week, which sent tens of thousands of fighting-age Russian men fleeing to avoid conscription.

Civilian suffering too is intensifying. Hours before the Russian leader spoke, dozens of civilians were killed in a missile attack outside the city of Zaporizhzhia. A long line of passenger cars had been waiting to cross into Russian-held territory, with many passengers seeking to retrieve family members and ferry them back into Ukrainian-controlled areas.

Following Putin’s speech from Moscow announcing the annexation bid, the Treasury Department sanctioned 14 international suppliers for supporting Russia’s military supply chains as well as 109 additional state Duma members and 169 members of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

Biden, who vowed that the U.S. would continue to support Ukraine with defense aid, including a new $1.1-billion package announced earlier this week, urged “all members of the international community to reject Russia’s illegal attempts at annexation and to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

Russia defended its move by claiming annexation had been supported by local referendums, but the international community dismissed them as sham votes.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, in a statement, issued a clear warning, noting that the G-7 had agreed to impose sanctions on “any individual, entity, or country that provides political or economic support for Russia’s illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory.”

But seven months into a conflict that has seen the U.S. and Western allies impose severe economic consequences for Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Russia only looks to be digging in deeper, despite failing to conquer Kyiv in the war’s early days and, more recently, suffering losses in the still contested eastern region where Ukrainian forces have retaken land Russia had controlled for a time.

Even before Putin’s signing of the so-called accession treaties covering the regions of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukraine and its Western allies had said they would never recognize Moscow’s claim. On the eve of the signing, U.N Secretary General António Guterres said the annexation bid had “no legal value” and “deserves to be condemned.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Putin’s proclamation “won’t change anything,” adding that the territories in question “are Ukrainian land and will always be part of this sovereign nation.”

Putin, in his 37-minute speech Friday announcing that the four Ukrainian regions would become part of Russia, accused the U.S. of “satanism” and “neocolonial hegemony.” He framed the battle as an existential war with the West, going as far as to justify his possible use of nuclear weapons by noting that the U.S. was the first country to deploy them at the end of World War II.

“They created a precedent,” Putin said, after blasting the U.S. as “hypocritical.”