Moscow (AFP) – Russia will annex four occupied regions of Ukraine at a grand ceremony at the Kremlin on Friday, Moscow said, after President Vladimir Putin threatened he could use nuclear weapons to defend the territories. The Russian leader is expected to deliver a major speech at the event, following referendums held last week in which four Ukrainian regions voted in a landslide to join Russia, but which were dismissed as a sham by the West. In a presidential decree issued Thursday evening, Putin said he had recognised the independence of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, paving the way for Moscow t…