‘The plunder of India’: Putin slams West as Russia annexes Ukraine's 4 regions

President Vladimir Putin on Friday cited India's example while accusing the West of provoking colour revolution in any country for geopolitical gains, alleging that the West wanted to make Russia a “colony”.

"The West ... began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, and then followed the slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India, of Africa, the wars of England and France against China ... What they did was hooking entire nations on drugs, deliberately exterminate entire ethnic groups," said Putin in the St George's Hall at a Kremlin ceremony, news agency Reuters reported.

At the grand ceremony, Putin also formally announced the annexation of Ukraine's four regions - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia and claimed that “this is the will of millions of people”.

"For the sake of land and resources, they (the West) hunted people like animals. This is contrary to the very nature of man, truth, freedom and justice," news agency ANI quoted Putin as saying.

"Following their goals, our geopolitical opponents - our opponents as we called them until quite recently - are prepared to put anyone, any country, in the line of fire; to turn it into the epicentre of a crisis; to provoke a "colour revolution" and unleash a bloodbath," Putin said.

"We have seen all this on more than one occasion. We also know that the West works on scenarios to stir up new conflicts in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) area. But we have enough of them as it is. You need but look at what's happening now between Russia and Ukraine, what's happening on the borders of some other CIS countries," the Russian president added.

Putin said the residents in the four annexed regions will now be Russia's "citizens forever".While denying seeking revival of the Soviet Union by the said annexation, Putin accused Western states - which have imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

Moreover, in a strong statement, Putin also added that Russia would now defend its new territory "with all the means at its disposal."

Putin also accused the West of sabotaging Russia-built natural gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea to Germany, a charge vehemently denied by the United States and its allies. Nordic nations said the undersea blasts that damaged the pipelines this week and have led to huge methane leaks involved several hundred pounds of explosives.

The claim by Putin came ahead of an emergency meeting Friday at the UN Security Council in New York on the attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, and as Norwegian researchers published a map projecting that a huge plume of methane from the damaged pipelines will travel over large swaths of the Nordic region.

In Washington, US President Joe Biden's administration dismissed Putin’s pipeline claims as outlandish.

(With inputs from agencies)