Putin to annex 4 regions of Ukraine on Friday

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the ceremony would take place at 3 p.m. (1200 GMT) on Friday in the St George's (Georgievsky) Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace to sign "agreements on the accession of new territories into the Russian Federation", Reuters reported.

Agreements will be signed "with all four territories that held referendums and made corresponding requests to the Russian side", Peskov said.

Preliminary results suggest that during the referendums, the voters in the Kherson region and Zaporizhzhia region, as well as in the DPR and LPR overwhelmingly supported joining Russia.

According to the final results of the referendum, verified by the DPR CEC, a total of 99.23% of the republic’s residents approved of becoming a part of Russia.

Ukraine and Western countries have called this referendum illegitimate.

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