Russia to formally annex four more areas of Ukraine

Russia's Vladimir Putin will hold a signing ceremony on Friday formally annexing four more areas of Ukraine after conducting self-styled referendums condemned by Ukraine and the West as a sham.

Russian-backed officials had earlier claimed the five-day exercise had secured almost total support from those who took part, although no independent monitoring took place.

So-called votes were held in two eastern regions, Luhansk and Donetsk, and in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south.

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