President Putin has announced the illegal seizure of four areas of Ukraine – saying they are now Russian territory.
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| President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Photo: Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via Reuters via Al Jazeera |
In an angry speech decrying the West, he claimed people living in the regions had made their choice – but “referendums” held there have been labelled shams.
The territory being seized is in Russian-held Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Ukraine has responded by asking Nato to speed up giving it membership of the US-led defence alliance.
In his response, President Zelensky vowed to oust the Russians from all of Ukraine.
Ukrainian soldiers are reportedly making progress in re-taking Lyman, a key city in the east.
Earlier, many civilians were killed and wounded in a Russian strike on a civilian convoy in Zaporizhzhia.
Putin’s latest move echoes Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, which also followed a discredited referendum. BBC
