Russia: Putin announces illegal annexation of 4 Ukrainian regions

President Vladimir Putin has officially announced the illegal annexation of the four Ukrainian regions, more than 7 months since the invasion was launched.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday formally announced that Moscow will annex four occupied regions of Ukraine, in an act condemned by the global community and in violation of international law.

"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.

However, he called on Ukraine to sit down for talks to end the more than seven-month-long war, but warned sternly that Russia would never surrender control of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Putin also said the West had broken its promises to Russia and had no moral right to talk about democracy, and that the countries of the West were acting as the imperialist states that they had "always been".

On Thursday, the Russian leader signed decrees recognizing the supposed independence of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, mirroring a decree signed in February regarding the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

"I order the recognition of the state sovereignty and independence" of the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, situated in southern Ukraine, Putin said in the decrees.

The four territories create a land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014 in a similar process.

So-called referendums were hastily held in recent days amid an effective Ukrainian counteroffensive that has seen Russian forces pushed back in the east.

An attack on annexed territory will be an attack on Russia — Kremlin

The Kremlin said that it would consider an attack against any part of the regions of Ukraine that it is illegally about to annex as acts of aggression against Russia itself.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Russia would "de jure" incorporate parts of eastern Ukraine that are not under the control of Russian forces into Russia itself as part of its move to annex four regions of Ukraine.

According to Peskov, Russia will consider the territory of "Donetsk People’s Republic" not yet controlled by Russian forces as part of Russia. However, he could not answer the question about the borders of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Peskov said he needs to clarify it.

Russia's illegal annexation plan condemned

Moscow's plans have been widely condemned with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres slamming the annexation scheme as "a dangerous escalation" that "has no place in the modern world."

US President Joe Biden said Thursday that "the United States will never, never, never" recognize Russia's claims on sovereign Ukraine territory.

Both German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock sharply condemned the so-called referendums in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.

During these "sham referendums," Baerbock said "people were taken out of their homes or from their jobs" at gunpoint "to cast votes in glass ballot boxes."

"This is the opposite of free and fair elections," she added.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will on Friday convene an "urgent" meeting of his national security council according to his presidential spokesman.

The UN Security Council will vote on a resolution on Friday condemning the referendums, although Moscow's veto power will ensure it has no chance of being passed.

Russia's attempt to bolster forces

As Moscow looks to carve out more Ukrainian territory it is also trying to bolster its forces with a partial mobilization order involving 300 thousand reservists — a move which has caused a flood of Russian men to flee to neighboring countries.

According to British military intelligence, the number of Russian military-age men fleeing "likely exceeds the size of the total invasion force Russia fielded in February 2022."

Amid domestic criticism, Putin told Russia's Security Council on Thursday that errors had been made in the mobilization.

Putin said Russian men mistakenly called up should be sent home and that only reservists with proper military training and specialties should be called to serve.