Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, signed a decree on Friday recognising the independence of the Ukrainian provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhia in defiance of protests and threats from other nations.
This occurred a week after the Kremlin declared that during a significant ceremony to be conducted in Moscow on Friday, Russia would formally annex 4 Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian military.
At a ceremony in the Kremlin, the annexation process will be made official, according to Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At the time, he also provided confirmation that the Russian president would make a significant speech.
These changes occurred when the Kremlin-appointed leaders of the four areas convened in the Russian capital on Thursday, one day after the pro-Moscow authorities formally requested that Putin annex the territories to Russia.
They sent requests to the Kremlin almost simultaneously after the four regions stated that all of their citizens had approved the action in the scope of hurriedly held referendums that Kyiv and the West deemed unconstitutional.
Notably, the four areas—Kherson and Zaporizhia in the south, Donetsk and Luhansk in the east—form a crucial land corridor between Russia and Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Together, the five regions make up nearly 20% of Ukraine’s total area, though government forces have been retaking key locations for weeks.
Russia proclaims Kherson Zaporizhia in Ukraine independent
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