MOSCOW, September 30 – Novosti. Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heads of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions signed agreements on the annexation of regions to Russia. The ceremony took place in the Georgievsky Hall of the Kremlin.
Putin also delivered a keynote speech, compared by some to his “Munich speech” in 2007, and made a number of important announcements, including a call to Kiev for a ceasefire and peace talks. Later that day, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Ukraine was applying to join NATO on an accelerated basis, and that he was not ready to talk to Putin.
Putin’s speech in the Kremlin
The President of the Russian Federation said that the collapse of Western hegemony that had begun is irreversible, the world has entered a period of revolutionary transformations that are of a fundamental nature, new centers of development are being formed. Putin emphasized that the West advocates an order based on rules, but it is not clear who came up with these rules, this is a complete fraud and double standards. Putin chided the US for trying to break Russia and other sovereign states in order to extricate itself from yet another tangle of contradictions. Those who are ready to live by the rules of the West, Putin called political masochists and “followers of non-traditional political relations.”
Putin also said that Russia calls on Kyiv to immediately stop all hostilities and return to the negotiating table. Addressing Kyiv and the West, Putin said: the people of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions will become our citizens forever. Later, speaking at a rally-concert on Red Square, Putin said that Russian soldiers during the special operation were heroically defending the Donbass and the country would do everything to support its new territories and their security.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov , after Putin’s speech in the Kremlin, said that the speech of the President of the Russian Federation cannot be ignored, so the ministry instructed Russian ambassadors abroad to disseminate it as much as possible, including in the UN and other international structures. Lavrov also stressed that the president’s phrase that Ukraine’s delay in resuming negotiations would make it more difficult to negotiate should be taken seriously.
The reaction of Zelensky and the West
Shortly after Putin’s speech, Zelensky issued a statement about Kyiv’s fast-tracking NATO membership bid, and also said that Ukraine would not negotiate with Russia as long as Putin was president.
The leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and the head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs , Leonid Slutsky , commented on this statement, calling it “a direct invitation to the alliance to enter into a military conflict with the Russian Federation.” Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev described Zelensky’s idea of Ukraine joining NATO as a plea to hasten the start of a third world war. The first deputy head of the international committee of the Federation Council Vladimir Dzhabarov said that Zelensky’s application should not be considered as Ukraine’s participation in the alliance, since NATO countries will not get involved in a war with the Russian Federation because of the Ukrainian authorities.
Later, Zelensky’s office said that NATO would not enter into hostilities on the side of Kyiv, and Ukraine’s application to join the alliance was needed in order to “fix the vector of development” and speed up the supply of Western weapons. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed that the alliance is not part of the conflict in Ukraine, but will continue to provide the necessary assistance to Kiev. Former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ilya Kiva said that it is planned to introduce a previously trained contingent of NATO forces in Poland into the territory of Western Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden also made a statement – he noted that the United States will always respect the borders of Ukraine, recognized by the international community, and will continue to provide it with military and diplomatic assistance in the return of all territories. The United States, Great Britain and Canada announced the introduction of new sanctions against the Russian Federation. The United States also imposed restrictions against companies from China , Belarus and Armenia for violating export control measures against the Russian Federation, the US Treasury said. In addition, the United States is ready to impose sanctions against foreign citizens and legal entities for supporting referendums in territories not controlled by Kyiv, the Finance Ministry added.
The EU stated that it would never recognize the accession to the Russian Federation based on the results of referendums of new subjects, and called on other countries to condemn them. And the G7 foreign ministers in a joint statement promised never to recognize the referendums held in the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions , and also expressed their intention to continue to impose economic restrictions on Russia. A number of countries, including Sweden , the Netherlands and Great Britain, summoned Russian ambassadors to the foreign ministries for explanations.
Operation progress
The Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed the Ukrainian mobile group of the electronic intelligence center in the Mykolaiv region , the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday. The Russian Armed Forces hit a Ukrainian platoon with American HIMARS MLRS in Nikolaev with counter-battery fire . The Russian Armed Forces shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet and a Su-25 attack aircraft .
Russian aviation, missile troops and artillery destroyed six Ukrainian depots of rocket and artillery weapons and ammunition in the DPR, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk regions and the city of Nikolaev. The Russian Armed Forces have killed up to 200 people and 23 pieces of equipment with missile strikes on the temporary deployment point of the Ukrainian military and the weapons depot in Kramatorsk , the Defense Ministry added. Russian air defense systems shot down 18 HIMARS MLRS shells, two HARM anti-radar missiles and five Ukrainian drones. The RF Armed Forces with a high-precision strike destroyed the workshops of the Yuzhmash plant in Dnepropetrovsk , where they were assembling the Ukrainian operational-tactical missiles Grom-2 and Tochka-U.
Ukrainian troops attacked a convoy of vehicles with civilians standing at the exit to the liberated part of the Zaporozhye region. Twenty-three people were killed, 34 were injured after shelling by Ukrainian troops of a convoy of cars at the exit to the liberated part of the Zaporozhye region, said Vladimir Rogov , a member of the main council of the regional administration .
The head of the DPR , Denis Pushilin , said that the city of Krasny Liman is now in a semicircle, the road from the city of Svatovo to the LPR is under the control of the allied forces, but is periodically shelled. The situation in Krasny Liman remains difficult, the units of the allied forces withstand the heavy onslaught of the enemy, but reinforcements are being brought up, he added. Until Friday, the Ukrainian security forces planned to cut off Krasny Liman in the DPR from the cities of Svatovo and Kremennaya in the LPR and move closer to the borders of the Russian Federation, but nothing came of it, LPR police colonel Vitaly Kiselev told Novosti .
Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov said that the territories of the DPR and LPR will become part of the Russian Federation within the borders of 2014, in which Russia had previously recognized the independence of these states. At the same time, the head of the regional administration, Vladimir Saldo , said that the Kherson region became part of the Russian Federation with the liberated settlements of the Nikolaev region. There will be no strikes from Ukraine on new territories after they become part of Russia, Peskov stressed, nothing more than an act of aggression.
