Free Republic

Vladimir Putin yesterday claimed that four occupied Ukrainian regions would remain part of Russia ‘for ever’ in a bizarre 40-minute tirade that included rants about ‘Satanism’ and colonialism. The rambling speech formed part of a ceremony in Moscow that formally confirmed his land grab following a series of rigged referendums. Ambling late to the podium in front of hundreds of ashen-faced officials, the despot lashed out at the West’s ‘neo-colonial’ foreign policy. ‘I want the Kyiv authorities and their real masters in the West to hear me, so that they remember this,’ Putin said. ‘People living in Luhansk and Donetsk,...

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (Reuters) -"It's funny. Nobody voted, yet the results are in," laughed Lyubomir Boyko, 43, from Golo Pristan, a village in Russian-occupied Kherson province as he waited on Wednesday outside a United Nations aid office with his family at a refugee reception centre. As Russia prepares to annex a swathe of Ukrainian territory the size of Portugal after staging what it calls referendums in four provinces, hundreds of Ukrainians escaped through the last Russian checkpoint. Many said they had fled while they still can. "A lot of people are just leaving everything behind. There are places that are completely...