Vladimir Putin is already describing occupied Ukraine as sovereign Russia.

Vladimir Putin has already started describing parts of occupied Ukraine as sovereign Russian territory, according to the UK.

Russia currently occupies approximately a fifth of Ukraine, having seized it all via military offensives over the last decade.

US president Donald Trump has offered to allow Moscow to formally declare some of that land as Russian territory – as long as Putin agrees to a wider peace deal.

But Russia’s gruelling invasion of Ukraine has continued – and Moscow is already referring to the seized land as part of its own country.

An update from the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) explained: “Russia now defines both occupied and unoccupied Ukrainian territory in the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson as well as Crimea, as being part of the Russian Federation.”

The UK officials added: “This directly contradicts Russia’s own formal recognition of Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty following the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

Putin’s decision to override that........

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