Vladimir Putin has formally signed a treaty annexing four Ukrainian regions into the Russian Federation. The Russian president announced, at a ceremony in Moscow’s Red Square, that the incorporation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, in the south and east of Ukraine, into Russia is the “choice of millions of people” who share a “common history” with the Russian Federation.
“We call on the Kyiv regime to immediately end hostilities, end the war that they unleashed back in 2014 and return to the negotiating table. We are ready for this,” Putin said. “But we will not discuss the choice of the people in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. That has been made. Russia will not betray them.”
What the Russian president didn’t make clear was exactly what these newly minted so-called Russian regions actually represent. Putin recognised breakaway republics in Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region in February, the day before he launched the all-out invasion of Ukraine. But the “republics” covered only part of the oblasts – or regions – these names refer to.
