Team News Riveting
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed off on the annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian regions during a seven-month conflict.
In one of the most significant turning points yet in the seven-month war on Kyiv, Putin confirmed the annexation of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions as well as the southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in a televised ceremony in the Grand Kremlin Palace’s St. George’s Hall.
“People living in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are becoming our citizens forever,” Putin said to a large round of applause. “We will defend our land with all the means we have available to us,” the Russian President told the room filled with hundreds of officials, including the occupied regions’ Moscow-installed leaders.
Russia’s parliament is expected to ratify the treaties next week, after which the four regions will formally become part of Russia.
Ukraine and its allies in the West have vowed never to recognize the annexation, calling it a blatant violation of Kyiv’s sovereignty. Western governments and Kyiv said the votes breached international law and were coercive and unrepresentative.
According to political analyst, the annexation is a last-gasp attempt for Putin to portray the war as a success. With Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Kyiv in 2014, Russia now lays claim to roughly 20 per cent of Ukraine’s lands.
Yet Russia does not control the entirety of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson or Zaporizhzhia regions, and Ukraine has continued to regain ground in its ongoing counteroffensive.
