Russia's unilateral declaration to annex four occupied Ukrainian regions has pushed Ukraine to formally apply to join the trans-Atlantic military alliance, as Moscow's seven-month-old war against Kyiv rages on, with fatalities reported Saturday in one of the newly annexed territories.In the latest escalation of the conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday declared the annexation of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic in Ukraine's east and the controlled parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy subsequen…READ FULL ARTICLE
