BREAKING: Putin Declares Four Regions of Ukraine as Russian Territories

President Putin has announced the illegal seizure of four areas of Ukraine – saying they are now Russian territories

In an angry speech decrying the West, he claimed people living in the regions had made their choice – but “referendums” held there have been labelled shams

The territory being seized is in Russian-held Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions

The formal process to incorporate them into the Russian Federation will happen over the next few days

It echoes Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, which also followed a discredited referendum

Earlier, many civilians were reported killed and wounded in a Russian strike on a civilian convoy in Zaporizhzhia

A huge crater next to a row of vehicles in the city testified to the violence of the attack