Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting. AP

The documents finalising the annexation were published on a Russian government website. In a defiant move, the Kremlin held the door open for further land grabs in Ukraine.

Speaking in a conference call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that "certain territories will be reclaimed, and we will keep consulting residents who would be eager to embrace Russia.”

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Peskov did not specify which additional Ukrainian territories Moscow is eyeing, and he wouldn’t say if the Kremlin planned to organize more such "referendums.”

Putin last week signed treaties that purported to absorb Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions into Russia. The move followed Kremlin-orchestrated "referendums” in Ukraine that the Ukrainian government and the West have dismissed as illegitimate.

The Russian president defended the validity of the vote, saying it's "more than convincing" and "absolutely transparent and not subject to any doubt.”

"This is objective data on people’s mood,” Putin said Wednesday at an event dedicated to teachers, adding that he was pleasantly "surprised” by the results.

On the ground, Russia faced mounting setbacks, with Ukrainian forces retaking more and more land in the eastern and southern regions that Moscow now insists are its own.

The precise borders of the areas Moscow is claiming remain unclear, but Putin has vowed to defend Russia's territory - including the annexed regions - with any means at his military's disposal, including nuclear weapons.

Shortly after Putin signed the annexation legislation approved by Russia’s parliament, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, Andriy Yermak, wrote on his Telegram channel that "the worthless decisions of the terrorist country are not worth the paper they are signed on."

"A collective insane asylum can continue to live in a fictional world,” Yermak added.

Zelenskyy responded to the annexation by announcing Ukraine's fast-track application to join NATO. In a decree released Tuesday, he also ruled out negotiations with Russia, declaring that Putin's actions made talking to the Russian leader impossible.

Associated Press