President Vladimir Putin on Friday announced there are “four new regions of Russia” as he announced the formal annexation of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Putin warned the West that the people of four Moscow-occupied Ukrainian regions were "our citizens forever". Putin also urged Ukraine to sit down for talks to end the seven months of fighting that started when the Russian leader ordered his troops to invade Ukraine. He said Ukrainian authorities should respect the results of the Kremlin-managed referendums as 'will of the people'. He sternly said that Russia would never surrender control of the newly absorbed regions.