President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday Ukraine was formally applying for fast-track membership of the NATO military alliance and that Kyiv was ready for talks with Moscow, but not with President Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian leader made his comments in a video which appeared intended as a forceful rebuttal to the Kremlin after Putin held a ceremony in Moscow to proclaim four partially occupied Ukrainian regions as annexed Russian land.
“We are taking our decisive step by signing Ukraine’s application for accelerated accession to NATO,” Zelenskyy said in a video on Telegram.
The video showed Zelenskyy announcing the decision and then signing a document flanked by his prime minister and the speaker of parliament.
“Ukraine is ready for negotiations, but with a different Russian president,” Zelenskyy said.
Earlier in the day, Putin proclaimed Russia’s annexation of a swath of Ukraine in a speech at the Kremlin, but the event was overshadowed by one of Russia‘s worst battlefield defeats of the war, with one of its main garrisons surrounded.
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“People living in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson region and Zaporizhzhia region are becoming our compatriots forever,” Putin told a crowd of officials in a ceremony in an ornate hall.
“We will defend our land with all our strength and all our means,” he said, calling on “the Kyiv regime to immediately cease hostilities and return to the negotiation table.”
