Kremlin-backed leaders of four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine were in Moscow on Thursday after calling on President Vladimir Putin to formally annex the territories into Russia.
Moscow-based chiefs of Ukraine’s Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions claimed residents backed the move in hastily organized votes the West says were a sham.
“I’m already in Moscow,” Leonid Pasechnik, leader of the separatist Luhansk region, told the state-run TASS news agency on Thursday.
Moscow-backed separatists have controlled large portions of Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.
A Moscow-appointed official from the Kherson region said a meeting between Putin and the heads of the occupied territories is planned.
“Of course, a meeting with the president is scheduled. Now I don’t have this information, I can’t say where, what, when,” Kirill Stremousov told a pro-Kremlin radio show.
Russian troops took control of Kherson in southern Ukraine shortly after Moscow sent troops into the country on February 24.