Extracts from Putin's speech at annexation ceremony

MOSCOW (Reuters), Sept. 30 - Russian President Vladimir Putin presided over a Kremlin ceremony to annexe four Ukrainian regions that were partially occupied by his forces. Below are extracts of his speech, which were translated by Reuters.

MESSAGE TO KYIV

"I want the Kyiv authorities, and their real masters from the West, to hear me so they can remember this. People who live in Luhansk, Donetsksk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia become our citizens. Forever.

"We appeal to the Kyiv regime immediately to end hostilities, stop the war they started back in 2014, and return to the negotiation table.

"We are ready for that... We won't discuss the decision of the people of Donetsk and Luhansk or Zaporizhzhia or Kherson. This has been done. They will not betray Russia."

DEFENDING 'OUR LAND’

"We will defend our land using all the power and means we have."

'NATION DISMEMBERED'

"In 1991, at Belovezh Forest without asking the will ordinary citizens, representatives from the then-party elites decided that the USSR would be destroyed and people were suddenly cut off from their homeland. This caused a national disaster by tearing down and dismembering our nation.

"I have to admit that they didn't fully understand what was happening and the consequences. This is irrelevant. The Soviet Union is gone, and the past cannot be reconstructed. Russia doesn't need it today. This is not what we are trying to do."

'GREAT, HISTORICAL Russia'

"The battlefield to which fate and history have called us is the battlefield for our people, for great historical Russia, for future generations, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

NORD STREAM "SABOTAGE"

"Sanctions weren't enough for the Anglo-Saxons. They moved on to sabotage. Although it is difficult to believe, it is a fact that they organized the blasts against the Nord Stream international pipelines of gas, which run along bottom of the Baltic Sea. Everyone who benefits from this is aware of it."

'NUCLEAR PRECEDENT'

"The United States is currently the only country that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying Hiroshima's and Nagasaki's cities, and setting a precedent."

"Even today they actually occupy Germany and Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries and at the same moment cynically refer to them as allies of equal standing."

WESTERN 'SATANISM’

"Now they have completely moved on to a radical denial moral norms, religion, family...

"The dictatorship of the Western elites is directed at all societies, even the peoples of the Western nations themselves. This is a challenge for all. This is a complete denial and overthrow of human dignity, faith, and traditional values. The suppression of freedom has become a religion, outright Satanism.

COLONIALISM

"The West... began its colonial policies back in the Middle Ages. Then came the slave trade, the genocide and massacre of Indian tribes in America, and the wars of England against China.

"They used drugs to hook entire nations and then exterminated entire ethnic groups. They treated people as animals in order to protect land and resources. This is against the very nature and purpose of man, truth, liberty, justice.

GENDER AND EDUCATION

"Do we really want here in Russia, instead'mum' or 'dad' to have a 'parent No. 1', 'parent No. 2', 'No. 3'? Are they completely insane? Do we really want it drilled into our children in schools... that there are other genders than women and men and [children to] be offered the opportunity to undergo sexchange operations? ... We have a better future, our own future.

Reporting from Reuters; Editing By Kevin Liffey

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