“Our compatibility with Alliance standards has already been established… By signing Ukraine’s application for accelerated NATO membership, we are taking a crucial step “Says Volodymyr Zelensky.
Following Russia’s formal annexation of four Moscow-controlled regions of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, declared on Friday that his nation wants fast-track NATO membership.
In a video shared on social media by the Ukrainian presidency, Zelensky stated, “We have already demonstrated our conformance with (NATO) alliance requirements.”
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By signing Ukraine’s application for rapid NATO membership, he continued, “We are taking a crucial step.”
Additionally, he stated that as long as President Vladimir Putin was in office, Kyiv would not engage in negotiations with Russia, which sent soldiers into Ukraine on February 24.
“Ukraine won’t enter talks as long as Putin is in charge of the Russian Federation. We’ll converse and bargain with the incoming president, “Zelensky remarked.
At a formal ceremony in the Kremlin, Putin signed agreements to annexe four Moscow-occupied regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, and Zaporizhzhya.
In referendums that Western capitals and international organizations did not recognise, the pro-Kremlin leaders of the annexing regions claimed the regions had approved joining Russia.
Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, which are largely or partially occupied by Russian or Russian-backed forces, are now officially recognised as being a part of Russia by Moscow.
Whether an assault by Ukraine on territory it claims as its own will be perceive as an attack on Russia was a topic of discussion among reporters. It would not be anything other, in response from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
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Last week, Putin declared his readiness to deploy nuclear weapons to protect Russia’s “territorial integrity.”
Following what it referred to as referendums in the Ukrainian districts it has occupied, Russia is attempting to annexe the territory. The hurriedly organized elections, according to Western nations and Kiev, violated international law and were coercive and completely unrepresentative.
Uncertainty surrounds the precise terms of Russia’s annexation, but it appears that in addition to the Crimea that Russia annexed in 2014, Russia is also claiming around 109,000 square kilometers (42,000 square miles) or nearly 18% of Ukrainian land.
Putin would have seized almost 136,000 sq km, or more than 22% of Ukraine, whose borders Russia recognised in a treaty after the demise of the Soviet Union, if Russia could establish authority over the whole region it claims.
That territory is not entirely under Russian authority, though. Ukrainian soldiers encircled the Russian bastion of Lyman in the north of the Donetsk region as Putin was getting ready to formally declare the commencement of the annexation.
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