Moscow: Vladimir Putin on Friday said there are now “four new regions of Russia” as he announced the formal annexation of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
Moscow’s forces had partially seized these regions over the last seven months since the Russian President ordered the invasion of its neighbouring country Ukraine on February 24.
Putin declared the annexations after holding what Russia called ‘referendums’ in occupied areas of Ukraine, even as Kyiv and opposing Western nations said the votes were coercive and unrepresentative, besides breaching international law.
Making it clear to the West that the people of four Moscow-occupied Ukrainian regions were ‘our citizens forever’, Putin said: “I want to say this to the Kyiv regime and its masters in the West: People living in the Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia (regions) are becoming our citizens forever,” Putin said.
Putin claimed that they had made a “unambiguous choice” to join Russia.
Putin urged Ukraine to talk with his government to end the seven months of conflict and fighting.
Both houses of Russian parliament will meet next week to formalise the treaties for the regions to join Russia.
Ukraine dismissed Putin’s claims, stating that the future of their country was being decided on the battlefields.
“We continue to work and liberate Ukrainian territories. And we don’t pay attention to those whose time to drink pills has come. The army is working, Ukraine is united. Only moving forward,” said Andrii Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office.
The separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in eastern Ukraine, declared independence in 2014, and have been backed by Moscow since then.
As for the Kherson region in southern Ukraine and part of the neighboring Zaporizhzhia, those were captured by Russia soon after Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year.
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