“We can say that the operation to liberate Lugansk has already begun,” said Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region of Ukraine.

Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially signed a decree on the annexation of four Ukrainian regions to Russia: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson, TASS reports.

On September 30, Putin, during the signing ceremony of the agreements on the accession of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions to the Russian Federation, announced that “Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions have become Russian regions”, noting that “the accession of the regions of the New Four of the Russian Federation expresses the people’s the will of millions,” he said, noting that “the choice of millions of residents of these regions is carried out after the catastrophe of the fragmentation of the Soviet Union,” noting that “we will do everything to protect our lands, and the Kyiv regime must respect the will of the people.”