September 30, 2022
Mine. Mine. Mine
What the hell? That’s not yours.
Mine.
That’s literally what happened today when Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a proclamation to annex nearly 1/5 of Ukraine. Annexing is a formal act where one government or country proclaims its sovereignty over another territory outside of its established borders.
So in this case – Putin claimed these four provinces in Ukraine are now part of Russia. Putin claims the people in these provinces overwhelmingly voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia. However Ukraine, and the rest of the world say that vote was a “sham”. And that Ukrainian citizens were literally forced to “vote” – sometimes at gun point.
Putin has said any attack on these newly annexed territories is an attack on Russia and he will defend his newly acquired territory with all weapons at his disposal.
President Biden responded to that threat today.
Because of what Putin did today — the us and our allies have said they will never recognize this annexation and have issued yet another “massive” sanctions package against Russia.
The position of the United States and our allies is that Russia cannot just randomly start calming the territory of other countries because it Putin feels like it. And if the world just ignored it because “Ukraine isn’t our problem” the thinking is – it would send the message that annexation by force is ok and there are no consequences. Other countries might start doing it too…China. By the way – taking territory by force is a direct violation of the United Nations charter. To further the United States support for Ukraine to continue the fighting in that newly annexed region and throughout the country — congress today — approved another $12 billion for military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
Read the President’s statement about Putin’s actions here.
