Putin tells Red Square concert Russia will achieve victory in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Denis Pushilin, Leonid Pasechnik, Vladimir Saldo, Yevgeny Balitsky, who are the Russian-installed leaders in Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, stand on a stage during a concert marking the declared annexation of the Russian-controlled territories of four Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, after holding what Russian authorities called referendums in the occupied areas of Ukraine that were condemned by Kyiv and governments worldwide, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia, September 30, 2022. REUTERS/REUTERS PHOTOGRAPHER

President Vladimir Putin told invited spectators watching a televised patriotic pop concert on Moscow's Red Square on Friday that Russia would achieve victory in its seven-month-old military campaign with Ukraine.

The concert, held in the shadow of the Kremlin walls, was being held to celebrate the annexation of four regions of Ukraine, for which Putin had signed documents a few hours earlier at a ceremony in the Kremlin.