VIDEO: Putin signs treaties annexing Ukrainian regions

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties on Friday to annex occupied areas of Ukraine and said he would use "all available means” to protect the territory that Ukrainian and Western officials said Russia was claiming illegitimately and in violation of international law.

In a speech preceding the treaty-signing ceremony, Putin urged Ukraine to sit down for talks to end the seven months of fighting that started when he ordered his troops to invade the neighboring country. But he warned that Russia would never give up the absorbed regions and would protect them as part of its sovereign territory.

The ceremony came three days after the completion of Kremlin-orchestrated "referendums” on joining Russia that were dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a bare-faced land grab held at gunpoint and based on lies.

Putin said Ukrainian authorities should "treat — with respect” the lopsided results of the Moscow-managed votes and warned sternly that Russia would never surrender control of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Ukraine and Western governments described those votes as bogus, illegitimate and conducted at gunpoint.

In a speech repeatedly interrupted by applause, Putin declared that Russia had four new regions.

He urged Ukraine to cease military action and return to the negotiating table. Kyiv has vowed to recapture all the lands seized by Russia and said that Russia's decision to annex the territories had destroyed any prospect of talks.

Putin on Friday directly accused "Anglo-Saxon" powers 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 pipeline."

Putin said the United States had created a "precedent" by using nuclear weapons against Japan at the end of World War Two, in a speech filled with hostility towards the West delivered from the Kremlin.

Fears of nuclear war have grown since Putin said last week he was "not bluffing" when he said Russia was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend its territory.

Announcing on Friday that Russia was annexing four Ukrainian regions, he said Russia would use "all the power and all the means" at its disposal to defend its new lands from attacks by the West or Ukraine.