The NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denounced Russia’s „illegal and illegitimate” annexation of four regions of Ukraine and warned Moscow not to use nuclear weapons in this conflict, AFP reports. “Ukraine has of course the right to retake Ukrainian territory which is now occupied by Russian forces. That’s the reason why we support them” he told a press conference in Brussels, after the Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine reacted to the annexation of its four regions by demanding accelerated accession to NATO. Zelenski also accused Russia of redrawing borders through murder, blackmail, mistreatment and lies. The annexation of the Ukrainian territories by Russia was vehemently condemned by the West, and the USA, Great Britain and Canada almost immediately announced new sanctions against Moscow. The European Commission, in turn, demanded the tightening of conditions for the entry of Russian citizens into the EU bloc, and the leaders of the Council of Europe, an organization that guarantees human rights on the continent and to which Russia is no longer affiliated, also condemned Moscow’s action. A condemnation of the annexation in the UN Security Council was however blocked by Russia’s veto. China and India, which are its close partners, abstained from the vote. The annexation of the four Ukrainian regions was also firmly condemned by Romania, which does not recognize and will never recognize the referendums illegally orchestrated by Moscow, according to President Klaus Iohannis. In a Facebook post, the Romanian president also recalled the joint statement of the European Council, which rejected and unequivocally condemned the illegal annexation of the Ukrainian regions.
