US President Joe Biden vowed on Thursday to “never, ever, ever” recognize the results of the “Russian-rigged” referendums in Ukraine.
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“I want to be very clear about this: the United States will never recognize Russia’s claims to the sovereign territory of Ukraine,” the US president said during a summit in Washington that brought together Pacific island leaders.
“The so-called referendums are a travesty, a complete travesty. The results were orchestrated in Moscow,” President Biden added, praising the “sacrifice” of Ukrainians “to save their people and preserve the freedom of their country.”
Referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he further opined that “Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, aimed at pursuing Putin’s imperial ambitions, is a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter and Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”
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The US president’s words came as the Russian president was due to formalize in Moscow on Friday the annexation of four Ukrainian regions by Russia, widely condemned by Kyiv and its Western allies.
The Kremlin is due to hold a ceremony at 12:00 GMT on Friday, which will formalize the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk (east) and Kherson and Zaporizhia (south). Vladimir Putin will deliver “a big speech” at the event, according to his spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Earlier on Thursday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had condemned the annexation “referendums”, saying they were “nothing more and nothing less than land grabs”.
“This farce of Kremlin-organized referendums is a futile attempt to cover up what is nothing less than another attempt to seize land in Ukraine,” Blinken said in a statement.
