Declaration: Russia will occupy four areas occupied by Ukraine tomorrow

Moscow:

A spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Moscow will formally annex four Russian-held territories of Ukraine at a Kremlin ceremony on Friday. “A signing ceremony for the incorporation of new territories of Ukraine will be held on Thursday in the Georgian Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He said the Russian leader would deliver the keynote address at the event. Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions are occupied by Russian forces, which Putin sent to the border in February.

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Moscow held a referendum in four regions under its control, with Kremlin-appointed officials this week saying people in the region supported joining Russia. Leaders of all four Moscow-backed regions said they were in Moscow and expected to meet Putin. The move comes eight years after Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and would mark a turning point in the conflict. Meanwhile, the West has warned Russia not to proceed with the occupation objective. The G7 countries said they would never approve the move. Moscow said that 93 percent of ballots cast in the Zaporizhia region supported the merger, 87 percent supported the move in the Kherson region, while 98 percent in Luhansk and 99 percent in Donetsk supported the move. At the same time, Ukraine rejected the referendum as illegal and said it had every right to retake the territories.