Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin on Sat­ur­day in­sist­ed that the res­i­dents of four Ukrain­ian re­gions that Moscow il­le­gal­ly an­nexed a year ago “made their choice — to be with their Fa­ther­land.”

In an ad­dress re­leased in the ear­ly hours to mark the first an­niver­sary of the an­nex­a­tion, Putin in­sist­ed that it was car­ried out “in full ac­cor­dance with in­ter­na­tion­al norms.” He al­so claimed that res­i­dents of the Donet­sk, Luhan­sk, Za­por­izhzhia and Kher­son re­gions had again ex­pressed their de­sire to be part of Rus­sia in lo­cal elec­tions ear­li­er this month. Rus­sia’s Cen­tral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion said the coun­try’s rul­ing par­ty won the most votes.

The West has de­nounced both the ref­er­en­dum votes car­ried out last year and the re­cent bal­lots as a sham. The votes were held as Russ­ian au­thor­i­ties at­tempt­ed to tight­en their grip on ter­ri­to­ries Moscow il­le­gal­ly an­nexed a year ago and still does not ful­ly con­trol.

A con­cert was held in Red Square on Fri­day to mark the an­niver­sary, but Putin did not par­tic­i­pate.

The ad­dress came af­ter Rus­sia’s De­fense Min­istry said Fri­day it would en­list 130,000 men for com­pul­so­ry mil­i­tary ser­vice this fall, be­gin­ning Oct. 1, in most re­gions of the coun­try. It an­nounced it would for the first time be­gin en­list­ing res­i­dents of the an­nexed ter­ri­to­ries as part of its twice-year­ly mil­i­tary con­scrip­tion cam­paign.

Rus­sia says con­scripts are not de­ployed to what it calls its “spe­cial mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion” in Ukraine, or to serve in the an­nexed ter­ri­to­ries. How­ev­er, af­ter their ser­vice, con­scripts au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be­come re­servists, and Rus­sia has pre­vi­ous­ly de­ployed re­servists to Ukraine.

In Ukraine, EU chief diplo­mat Josep Bor­rell ref­er­enced the an­niver­sary of the re­gions be­ing “il­le­gal­ly an­nexed” by Rus­sia in a video record­ed dur­ing an unan­nounced vis­it to the Black Sea port city of Ode­sa on Sat­ur­day. Speak­ing from the city’s Trans­fig­u­ra­tion Cathe­dral, se­vere­ly dam­aged in a Russ­ian mis­sile strike in Ju­ly, Bor­rell re­it­er­at­ed the EU’s sup­port for Ukraine.

“Ode­sa is a beau­ti­ful his­toric city. It should be in the head­lines for its vi­brant cul­ture and spir­it. In­stead, it marks the news as fre­quent tar­get of Putin’s war,” the EU For­eign Af­fairs and Se­cu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy chief wrote on X, for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter.