Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties Friday to illegally annex more occupied Ukrainian territory in a sharp escalation of his seven-month invasion. Ukraine’s president immediately countered with a surprise application to join the NATO military alliance. Putin’s land-grab and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s signing of what he said is an “accelerated” NATO membership application sent the two leaders speeding even faster on a collision course that is cranking up fears of a full-blown conflict between Russia and the West. Putin vowed to protect newly annexed regions of Ukraine by “all available means,” a nuclear-backed threat at a Kremlin signing ceremony where he also railed furiously at the West, accusing the United States and its allies of seeking Russia’s destruction. Zelenskyy then held a signing ceremony of his own in Kyiv, releasing video of him putting pen to papers that he said were a formal NATO membership request. He called the move “our decisive step.” Putin has repeatedly made clear that any prospect of Ukraine joining the world’s largest military alliance is one of his red lines and it was among the justifications he has cited for his invasion — the biggest land war in Europe since World War II.. In his speech, Putin urged Ukraine to sit down for peace talks but immediately insisted he won’t discuss handing back occupied regions. Zelenskyy said there’d be no negotiations with Putin. “We are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but … with another president of Russia,” he said. In his signing ceremony in the Kremlin’s ornate St. George’s Hall, Putin accused the West of fueling the hostilities as part of what he said is a plan to turn Russia into a “colony” and a “crowds of slaves.” The hardening of his position, in the conflict that that has killed and wounded tens of thousands of people, further cranked up tensions, already at levels unseen since the Cold War. The U.S. announced sanctions for more than 1,000 people and firms connected to Russia’s invasion, including its Central Bank governor. Of Putin’s annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, President Joe Biden said: “Make no mistake: These actions have no legitimacy.” NATO and the European Union also rejected the annexation as illegal. The EU’s 27 member states said they will never recognize the illegal referendums that Russia organized “as a pretext for this further violation of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called it “the largest attempted annexation of European territory by force since the Second World War.” Zelenskyy vowed to keep fighting, defying Putin’s warnings that Ukraine shouldn’t try to take back what it has lost. “The entire territory of our country will be liberated from this enemy,” the Ukrainian leader said. “Russia already knows this. It feels our power.” The immediate ramifications of the “accelerated” NATO application weren’t immediately clear, since it requires the unanimous support of all members. The supply of Western weapons to Ukraine has, however, put it closer to the alliance’s orbit. “De facto, we have already proven compatibility with alliance standards,” Zelenskyy said. “We trust each other, we help each other, and we protect each other. This is the alliance.” Putin’s Kremlin ceremony came three days after the completion in occupied regions of Moscow-orchestrated “referendums” on joining Russia that were dismissed by Kyiv […]

The post Putin Illegally Annexes Ukraine Land; Kyiv Seeks NATO Entry appeared first on The Yeshiva World.