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Putin announces Russia will annex four regions of Ukraine

CNN  — 

Russian President Vladimir Putin formally announced the Kremlin’s intention to annex nearly a fifth of Ukraine in blatant violation of international law.

Once the process is officially complete, Moscow will recognize four Ukrainian regions as Russian territory: Luhansk and Donetsk – home to two Russian-backed breakaway republics where fighting has been ongoing since 2014 – as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, two areas in southern Ukraine that have been occupied by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began.

Putin said that while he was willing to negotiate with Ukraine, the sovereignty of those four regions would not be on the table.

“I want the Kyiv authorities and their real masters in the West to hear me. For everyone to remember. People living in Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are becoming our citizens. Forever,” the Russian president said during the annexation ceremony Friday.

The annexation announcement follows so-called referendums in the regions that were universally dismissed as “a sham” by Ukraine and Western nations.

Putin, however, attempted to claim that the referendums reflected the will of “millions” of people, despite reports from the ground suggesting that voting took place essentially – and in some cases, literally – at gunpoint.

The Russian president framed the annexation as an attempt to fix what he sees as a great historical mistake that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

His speech echoed Putin’s major foreign policy aim: restoring Russia as a major global power charged with protecting the Russian speaking world from the continued threat posed by Western forces.

Russia will now, despite the widespread international condemnation, forge ahead with its plans to fly its flag over some 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) of Ukrainian territory – the largest forcible annexation of land in Europe since 1945.

This is a developing story. More details to come.