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US President Joe Biden has warned Russia that the United States will not be intimidated by reckless threats after Vladimir Putin annexed four occupied regions of Ukraine.
Putin appeared to make a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons to defend the new annexed territories, reports BBC.
The Russian president declared that the regions would "forever" be part of Russia.
Putin claimed citizens in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk had voted to be "with their people, their motherland".
He was referring to so-called referendums held in the regions in recent days, but Ukraine and Western governments have condemned the votes as a sham.
He said the US had created a "precedent" by using nuclear weapons against Japan at the end of World War Two, in an apparent threat.
The Kremlin has made clear that any attack on the newly annexed regions would be seen as an attack on Russian soil, signalling an escalation in the war.
Meanwhile, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the annexation "the most serious escalation since the start of the war".
Bd-pratidin English/Golam Rosul
