Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, will preside over a ceremony in the Kremlin on Friday to formally annexe four Ukrainian regions, annexing 15% of Ukrainian territory.
The ceremony to sign ‘agreements on the accession of new territories into the Russian Federation’ will take place at 3 p.m. (1200 GMT) on Friday in the St. George’s (Georgievsky) Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace, according to Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
In accordance with ‘all four territories that held referendums and made appropriate requests to the Russian side,’ agreements would be inked, according to Peskov.
Seven months after Russia’s invasion, hastily organised elections staged in the occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson areas were denounced by Ukraine and the West as being fraudulent shams.
Putin’s decision to annex the regions implies that together with the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine and annexed in 2014, Moscow will also annex a portion of eastern and southern Ukraine about the size of Portugal.
Putin will deliver a significant speech and meet with the regional administrations of Ukraine after the signing ceremonies.
The ceremony is a step in a process, according to Peskov, in which Putin will later individually address the Russian parliament.
On Friday night, a celebration concert is scheduled for Red Square. Putin’s attendance would be announced to the media later, according to Peskov.
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