The Latest Breaking News from Donetsk

Military defeat in Donetsk comes hours after Moscow declared that the region was Russian territory ‘for ever’

Russia's Defence Ministry on Saturday said it had pulled Russian troops out of the key town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine, citing the "threat of encirclement" by Ukrainian forces.

Moscow (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin staged a grand ceremony in Moscow on Friday to celebrate the annexation of four parts of Ukraine occupied by his army, while Kyiv pushed for expedited NATO membership.

President Vladimir Putin announced that four occupied regions of Ukraine would formally be incorporated into Russia.

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…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed treaties to formally incorporate four Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia – at a grand ceremony in the Kremlin. The ceremony followed discredited referendums in the Russian-occupied regions, which have been slammed as a "sham" by the international community.

In defiance of international law, President Vladimir Putin has signed treaties absorbing occupied regions of Ukraine into Russia. Most governments have declared the move illegal.

Putin has declared the annexation of the Russian-controlled territories of four Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, after holding sham referendums in the occupied areas.

Moscow (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday annexed four territories in Ukraine controlled by his army at a grand ceremony in the Kremlin and urged Kyiv to lay down its arms and negotiate an end to seven months of fighting.