President Putin has announced the illegal seizure of four areas of Ukraine - saying they are now Russian territory
In an angry speech decrying the West, he claimed people living in the regions had made their choice - but "referendums" held there have been labelled shams
The territory being seized is in Russian-held Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions
Ukraine has responded by asking Nato to speed up giving it membership of the US-led defence alliance
In his response, President Zelensky vowed to oust the Russians from all of Ukraine
Ukrainian soldiers are reportedly making progress in re-taking Lyman, a key city in the east
Earlier, many civilians were killed and wounded in a Russian strike on a civilian convoy in Zaporizhzhia
Putin's latest move echoes Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014, which also followed a discredited referendum