US President Joe Biden
US President Joe BidenReuters

The White House enacted a new round of sanctions against Russia on Friday after President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was annexing four occupied regions of Ukraine.

The sanctions will deliver “swift and severe costs” to Russia for the “fraudulent and unlawful annexation” of Ukrainian provinces, the Biden administration announced.

“Make no mistake: These actions have no legitimacy,” President Joe Biden said, responding to Putin's annexation. “The United States will always honor Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.”

“In response to Russia’s phony claims of annexation, the United States, together with our allies and partners, are announcing new sanctions today,” Biden added. “These sanctions will impose costs on individuals and entities – inside and outside of Russia – that provide political or economic support to illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory.”

The sanctions will go after Russian government and military officials and will also target military officials in key Russian ally Belarus.

Earlier on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that leaders of the four annexed regions had signed agreements in Moscow to become part of Russia.

"In the people's republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and in the regions of Lugansk and Donetsk there were referendums. Their results are known and show an unequivocal choice. Today we sign the agreement to accept them into the Russian Federation. This is the wish of more than a million people. This is their right that cannot be taken away, written in the UN constitution,” Putin said during a Kremlin speech.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden said that the US will not recognize Russia’s annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

"The United States will never recognize the annexation of the Ukrainian territories by Russia," Biden said.