Aggressors may carry out the forcible and unilateral annexation of another state's territory. Such actions are accompanied by the complete abolition of the sovereignty of the captured entity and the final integration of its lands into the occupier's legal and economic space through the issuance of corresponding manifestos or the staging of sham electoral procedures.
The seizure and incorporation into the empire of Right-Bank Ukraine, Volhynia, and Podillia: Russia received "the Kyiv, Bratslav, and Podillia voivodeships and the eastern half of the Volhynian voivodeship," and under the third partition – "the western part of the Volhynian voivodeship, the western parts of the Kholm land and the Belz voivodeship"[1].
The severing of Bessarabia from the Ottoman Empire and its official annexation under the Peace of Bucharest: the treaty "confirmed the annexation of Bessarabia to Russia and the transfer of the border from the Dniester to the Prut down to its confluence with the Danube"[2].
The official annexation of the occupied lands: the western Ukrainian lands were incorporated into the USSR under the treaty with Germany of September 28, 1939[3], and "after the Red Army occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovyna at the end of June 1940, on August 2, 1940 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR annexed Northern Bukovyna and the Khotyn, Akkerman, and Izmail districts of Bessarabia to the Ukrainian SSR"[4].
The legal formalization of the territory's severance: the treaty on "accession" was signed on March 18, 2014, and the law ratifying it was "Adopted by the State Duma on March 20, 2014, approved by the Federation Council on March 21, 2014"[5].