Russia says it will annex four occupied regions of Ukraine following referendums that were dismissed by the West as 'sham' elections.
It comes after Moscow-backed authorities staged votes in the occupied regions of Ukraine's east and south that wereKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin would attend a ceremony on the accession of the four regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia — at the Kremlin's St. George's Hall on Friday.
“Based on our information, every aspect of this referenda process was pre-staged and orchestrated by the Kremlin,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told another briefing.to bolster his struggling campaign in Ukraine.trying to flee the draft, with miles of lines of traffic at border crossings with Georgia and Finland — the latter announcing Thursday it would close its frontier to Russian tourists.
There is also international concern about how Moscow might seek to defend its new claimed territory if and when Kyiv tries to take it back.
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