Blinken says West will ‘never recognise’ pro-Russia annexation votes in Ukraine

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed on Tuesday that the West will never recognise Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory, which he called part of a "diabolical scheme" by Moscow.

"We and many other countries have already been crystal clear. We will not -- indeed, we will never -- recognise the annexation of Ukrainian territory by Russia," Blinken told reporters as Kremlin proxies started to claim victory.

Blinken repeated President Joe Biden’s threat that the United States "will impose additional swift and severe costs on Russia" for going ahead with the referendums. "It’s important to remember what’s going on here. Russia invaded Ukraine, seized territory and is engaged in a diabolical scheme on some of the territory it seized where it has moved the local populace out," he said.

Some people are deported and others "simply disappear," Blinken said. "Then they bus Russians in, they install puppet governments and they engage in the referendum and manipulate, in any event, the outcome to then claim that the territory belongs to Russia," he said.Earlier, Kremlin-installed authorities were already claiming victory on Tuesday in annexation votes in Ukrainian regions under Russian control, as Moscow warned it could use nuclear weapons to defend the territories.

Ukraine and its allies have denounced the so-called referendums as a sham and said the West would never recognise the results of the ballots that have dramatically ratcheted up the stakes of Russia’s seven-month invasion.

"It’s already clear that the vast majority of people supported the issue of secession from Ukraine and joining Russia," Vladimir Saldo, the Moscow-appointed head of the Russian-held Kherson region, said on social media.

Election officials in Moscow said voters casting their ballots in Russia had overwhelmingly backed annexation, while authorities in Kherson and another Russian-occupied region, Zaporizhzhia, showed an initial 87 and 92 percent backing for the move.

"Saving people in the territories where this referendum is taking place... is the focus of the attention of our entire society and of the entire country," Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier during a televised meeting with officials.

His spokesman Dmitry Peskov meanwhile said the votes would have "radical" legal implications and that the so-called referendums "will also have consequences for security", referring to Moscow’s threats to use nuclear weapons to defend its territory. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba however doubled down on Kyiv’s promise to push out Russian forces from its country, saying the votes "would not have any influence" on the battlefield.