Why did Putin annex a region of Ukraine to Russia?
3:16
(CNN) --
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law measures that seek to annex four Ukrainian regions to the Russian Federation.
The alleged annexations of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson are illegal under international law.
ANALYSIS |
Annexation fails to hide the gulf between what Putin wants and what his forces can sustain
Leaders around the world have said they are the result of “bogus” referendums conducted at gunpoint and will never be recognized.
However, the move is an important step in Russia's faltering effort to take control of Ukraine, with Putin claiming that the will of the occupied Ukrainians is to belong to Russia, offering a false pretext for his efforts to claim the occupied territories as from Moscow.
Should we be worried about Putin's threats to use nuclear weapons?
1:50
Western officials have previously suggested that Putin will likely try to recast Ukraine's counteroffensive in all four regions and elsewhere as an attack on Russia's sovereignty.
Russia does not fully control the regions it claims to have annexed and Moscow is losing territory to the Ukrainian military in the south and east of the country by the day.
In some areas, like Kherson, those losses are occurring at an accelerating rate.
advertising
The Kremlin does not even seem to be clear about the limits of the territory it is annexing.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that "we will continue to consult with the population of these regions."
A Ukrainian regional official in the Zaporizhia region said on Tuesday that Russia was trying to establish a "state border" at the Vasylivka checkpoint, which separates Russian-controlled territory from the rest of Ukraine, including the regional capital of Zaporizhia.
war in ukraine
