Russia has four new regions as Moscow annexes parts of Ukraine, says Putin

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, formally annexed portions of occupied Ukraine with a decree he signed on September 30, establishing four new regions in the nation.

“There are four new regions of Russia,” Putin said from the Kremlin in Moscow.

Regarding the string of annexations that the West referred to as a charade, Putin stated that "the outcomes are known, widely known."

He asserted that the outcomes were the consequence of millions of people's free choice and that they had the right to self-determination.

Putin's remarks follow Moscow's formal incorporation of four seized Ukrainian regions into the Russian Federation.

These include two self-declared, pro-Russian "republics" in the eastern cities of Luhansk and Donetsk as well as the southern ones of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of voters chose to join Russia in the elections, which were viewed as fraudulent, illegal and rigged by Ukraine and its allies.

In an effort to prevent Russia from annexing more land as it did with Crimea in 2014, Ukraine claimed that the referendums were conducted "under the barrel of a gun" and urged its allies to do the same.

Following the alleged voting, Kyiv declared that it would not engage in negotiations with the Kremlin and that it would not stop fighting until it had returned every square inch of territory lost to Russia.