Putin Signs Laws On Annexation As Kyiv Takes Back Dozens Of Towns

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed laws formally absorbing four Ukrainian regions into Russia, even as its military struggles to control the territory that was illegally annexed.

The documents finalizing the annexation, carried out in defiance of international laws, were published on a Russian government website on Wednesday morning.

Both houses of the Russian parliament ratified treaties making the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions part of Russia. That followed Kremlin-orchestrated "referendums" in the four regions that Ukraine and the West have rejected as a sham. On the ground, Moscow's war in Ukraine has entered a new, more dangerous phase. Russia faces mounting setbacks, with Ukrainian forces retaking more and more land in the east and in the south - the very regions Moscow has pushed to annex.