At the ceremony on Friday, Putin said Russia has “four new regions”, calling the residents of Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions “our citizens forever”.
"This is the will of millions of people,” he said in the speech before hundreds of dignitaries at the St George’s Hall of the Kremlin.
We will defend our land with all our strength and all our means,” he added, calling on “the Kyiv regime to immediately cease hostilities and return to the negotiation table”.
In one of his toughest anti-American speeches in more than 20 years in power, Putin signalled he was ready to continue what he called a battle for a “greater historical Russia”, slammed the West as neo-colonial and as out to destroy his country, and without evidence accused Washington and its allies of blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
Shortly after the ceremony, Russia vetoed a UN resolution that would have declared its referendums as having “no validity” and urged all countries not to recognise any “purported annexation” of the territory by Moscow.
The vote on the resolution in the 15-member Security Council was 10-1, with China, India, Brazil and Gabon abstaining.
