In lieu of the recent controversies and outcries about the annexation, it has been revealed that the upper house of the Russian parliament has finally ratified Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian regions.
The four territories which had been annexed include Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson.
Read Also: Pope Francis Appeals Putin To End Violence, Death In Ukraine
TASS had also reported that the Federation Council had also voted unanimously to pass a bill which would be incorporating them into Russia.
President Vladimir Putin had also signed the treaties of accession last Friday and the lower house had approved it on Monday.
It has been revealed that President Putin will now sign the annexation bill into law while affirming the total takeover of the regions.
In another report, Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church has for the first time directly appealed to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to stop the ‘spiral of violence and death’ in Ukraine.
In an address on Sunday dedicated to Ukraine in St Peter’s Square, the head of the Catholic Church said he is haunted by ‘rivers of blood and tears’.
‘My appeal goes above all to the president of the Russian Federation, begging him to stop this spiral of violence and death, even out of love for his own people,’ he said.
In a related development, Pope Francis appealed to Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to be open to serious peace proposals to halt the ongoing war.
He also lamented the annexation of four Ukrainian regions by Russia’s troops, saying it risked nuclear escalation, hence urging Putin to think of his own people.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that, Putin had proclaimed the annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian regions, calling the residents of Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia regions ‘our citizens forever’.
Ukraine and Western allies condemned the annexation as illegal, and Kyiv said it will continue fighting to recapture all occupied Ukrainian territory.