We, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union, are united in our condemnation in the strongest possible terms of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and its continued violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and Independence.

President Putin’s efforts to incorporate Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions into the territory of the Russian Federation constitute a new low point in Russia’s blatant flouting of international law, and yet another example of Russia’s unacceptable violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty, the UN Charter, and the commonly agreed principles and commitments of the Helsinki Final Act and the Paris Charter epa news wire.

We will never recognize these purported annexations, nor the sham “referenda" conducted at gunpoint.

We reiterate our call for all countries to condemn unequivocally Russia’s war of aggression and its attempt to acquire territory by force. We call on the broader international community to reject Russia’s brutal expansionism, its efforts to deny Ukraine’s existence as an independent state, and its blatant violation of the international norms that guarantee international peace, security, and the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states.