Putin formalizes annexation of four territories in southeastern Ukraine

KYIV (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin formally incorporated four partially occupied Ukrainian regions into Russia on Wednesday, a move Kyiv condemned as a meaningless land grab dreamed up by “a collective madhouse.”

Pushing ahead with Europe’s biggest annexation since World War II, Putin signed off on a law annexing up to 18% of Ukraine, some of which Moscow’s forces do not control.

Including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, Moscow is laying claim to almost a quarter of Ukraine, though it has yet to spell out where all of the borders will be located and its own troops have been forced to retreat on two fronts.

The Russian leader’s signature

was the final stage in the legal process to annex Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south. He later said Russia would stabilize the situation there, an indirect acknowledgment of the challenges it faces to assert its control.

Kyiv says it will never accept an illegal imperial-style land grab and has recaptured hundreds of square miles of its own territory in recent weeks.

Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said on Telegram that what Russia was doing reminded him of a “collective madhouse.” “Worthless decisions by a terrorist country are not worth the paper they are signed on,” he said.

With even Russian state TV hosts showing signs of despondency at the battlefield losses, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the idea that they undermined the annexation of the regions.

“They will be with Russia forever and they (ceded land in the new territories) will be returned,” a defiant Peskov told reporters.

A map published by the state RIA news agency suggested Russia wants big chunks of Ukraine under the control of the Ukrainian army which has been rapidly advancing in the east, and which this week made a breakthrough in the south too.