Russia annexes 4 regions in Ukraine

October 1, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin presided over a ceremony to formally annex four Ukrainian regions.

Key facts

Eight years following the Russian annexation of Crimea, Moscow has captured four more Ukrainian territories – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Earlier, Russia organized a referendum on Russia’s administration of these regions.
Kremlin claimed that residents of these regions overwhelmingly supported their regions formally becoming part of Russia.
These referendums are considered by the West as illegal and rigged and were orchestrated by the Russian Government.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed “accession treaties” to formalize these annexations at a ceremony in Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow in the presence of Russia’s political elites.
With the formal annexation of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk, Russia controls nearly 15 per cent of Ukrainian territory.
Russia does not fully control these regions since Ukrainian forces have reclaimed several areas that were earlier captured by Russia.
In terms of total area, Russia will control over 90,000 square kilometers of Ukraine’s total land area. This is almost equivalent to the size of countries like Portugal or Jordan.
It is equivalent to Austria and Belgium combined or Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands combined or 30 per cent of Germany’s territory.
It is also 50 per cent of the size of the United Kingdom.
If Crimea, a Ukrainian territory annexed in 2014, is also included, Moscow has control over 107,000 sq km of Ukraine’s territory.
This makes it the largest forced annexation in Europe since the Second World War.
The four recently annexed Ukrainian regions have historic ties with Russia, with Luhansk and Donetsk having large proportion of population speaking Russian and ethnically Russian.
These regions opposed Ukraine increasing its ties with the West.
Now, Ukraine is planning to fight to reclaim its lost territories and fast-track its membership to NATO
The Western countries have announced that they will never recognize the Russian claims over these territories.