“I want the Kyiv authorities and their real masters in the West to hear me, so that they remember this. People living in Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are becoming our citizens. Forever,” Putin declared.

He urged Ukraine to cease military action and return to the negotiating table. “We call on the Kyiv regime to immediately end hostilities, end the war that they unleashed back in 2014 and return to the negotiating table. We are ready for this.”

Russia’s proxies claim victory in Ukraine annexation votes

The ceremony took place three days after the completion of hastily staged so-called referendums in which Moscow’s proxies in the occupied regions claimed majorities of up to 99 per cent in favour of joining Russia.

Ukraine and Western governments said the votes, announced only 10 days ago, had been conducted at gunpoint and were bogus and illegitimate. Along with the head of the United Nations, they said the annexation ceremony has no legal value, with Kyiv describing it as a “Kremlin freak show”.

In his speech, Putin said the West was “satanic” and rejected “moral norms” and attacked the West’s liberalism, saying that, unlike Russia, it had turned away from “traditional” and “religious” values.

At one point he asked the assembled dignitaries if they wanted “children to be offered sex-change operations”, a practice he implied was widespread in the West.

In his two decades in power, Putin has routinely promoted what he says are “traditional values” and suppressed LGBTQ rights through a number of laws and by backing ultra-conservative movements and initiatives.

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Putin admits to mobilisation mistakes after reports of sick, old men being drafted

Putin admits to mobilisation mistakes after reports of sick, old men being drafted

Putin also directly accused the United States and its allies of blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.

“The sanctions were not enough for the Anglo-Saxons: they moved onto sabotage”, Putin said. “It is hard to believe but it is a fact that they organised the blasts on the Nord Stream international gas pipelines”.

“They began to destroy the pan-European energy infrastructure”, Putin said. “It is clear to everyone who benefits from this. Of course, he who benefits did it”.

A sharp drop in pressure on both pipelines was registered on September 26 and seismologists detected explosions, triggering a wave of speculation about who might have sabotaged one of Russia’s most important energy corridors.

Putin kept hundreds of assembled dignitaries waiting for 18 minutes before entering the imposing columned hall through a pair of golden doors opened by high-stepping guards, as a fanfare blared.

What if Putin isn’t bluffing about a nuclear strike on Ukraine?

In his speech, he evoked the memory of Russian heroes from the 18th century to World War Two and repeated familiar accusations against the West, accusing it of colonial practices and recalling the use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Japan at the end of World War Two.

The annexations mean that Russia, which had already seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, now lays claim to some 22 per cent of Ukraine’s territory, including parts that it does not control.

The front lines of the war will now run through territory that Russia is declaring as its own and that Putin has said he is ready to defend with nuclear weapons if necessary.

Some Western politicians called that a bluff – something Putin explicitly denied. The United States says it has warned Russia of catastrophic consequences if it does use a nuclear weapon.