After engaging for just over seven months in a war with Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin will begin annexing four Ukrainian regions to Russia, a move the United Nations warned would mark a "dangerous escalation" and jeopardise prospects for peace, while Kyiv warned it would elicit a harsh response.
The map shows the eastern region of Ukraine. Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions are highlighted with a red dotted line. A soft red highlight shows the Russian-occupied areas in the east. The map also highlights the Donabas region in the east which is controlled by Russian-backed separatists since before the war and the Crimean peninsula.
Note: The Crimean peninsula was annexed by Russia in 2014, but the region is not internationally recognised as part of Russia. Russian-occupied territory data as of 3 p.m. EST, Sep. 29.
Sources: Natural Earth; United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); Worldpop.org; Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project; Reuters.
Graphic by Prasanta Kumar Dutta for Reuters on September 30, 2022.