Guwahati: At least 30 people dead and 88 injured after a Russian missile targeted a civilian convoy in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Friday.
“The enemy launched a rocket attack on a civilian humanitarian convoy on the way out of Zaporizhzhia,” Oleksandr Starukh, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, said on Telegram. The people killed in the strike include an 11-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, CNN reported quoting the head of Ukraine’s National Police, Ihor Klymenko.
The annexation of four regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—was formally announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday. He asserted that “this is the will of millions of people.”
Putin reportedly stated that the inhabitants of the four annexated territories will henceforth be “citizens for life” of Russia.
In a lengthy address at a Kremlin event announcing the acquisition of Ukrainian territory, Putin stated, “There are four new regions of Russia.” According to Al Jazeera, the address was replete with harsh criticism of Ukraine and its Western backers.
Putin criticised Western nations, which have imposed severe sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, while simultaneously denying that he was trying to revive the Soviet Union through the aforementioned annexation.
Putin went on to say that Russia would now protect its new territory “with all the tools at its disposal” in a resounding declaration.
He also called the result of the referendum “the will of millions of people.”
Additionally, he referred to the referendum’s outcome as “the will of millions of people.”
Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24 in response to a request for assistance from the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics to protect themselves. Following the military action, the western nations enacted a number of sanctions aimed at the Russian economy.