‘Like they plundered India…’: Putin says West wants to make Russia a colony

Putin devoted much of the 37-minute address to reiterating his denunciations of the US and its allies for allegedly trying to turn Russia into a “colony. ” Lashing out at what he described as the “pure satanism” of Western liberal values, he said Russia has its own views on the issues of gender and family.

Absorbed regions are “off the negotiating table”

Meanwhile, Putin also vowed his annexation of four occupied regions in Ukraine is irreversible, as the Russian president formalized Europe’s biggest land grab since World War II.

“They will become our citizens forever,” he told officials in a Kremlin ceremony Friday before he and pro-Moscow leaders signed annexation documents. He demanded Ukraine stop fighting and begin talks, but refused to negotiate about the lands he’s absorbing.

The United Nations and many countries have denounced the annexation as illegal even as Putin insisted it reflects popular will and the right to national self-determination. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Thursday Russia would “annex itself to the catastrophe that it has brought to the occupied territory of our country.”

The signing ceremony ended with a smiling Putin holding hands with the four regions’ Kremlin-installed chiefs as he joined in chants of “Russia” in the hall.