Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former official in Tehran's theocracy who has been under house arrest for years, argues the current system handing supreme leader final say no longer works

Announcement comes after occupied Ukrainian regions vote to join Russia in referendum deemed rigged by the West; spending to go toward contracts for weapons and equipment

Moscow-installed officials in occupied areas say they'll ask Putin to absorb them into Russia following votes that Israel and other Western countries have rejected

US Secretary of State Blinken promises 'swift and severe costs' on Moscow while NATO Chief Stoltenberg says West will keep providing military aid to Kyiv

Jerusalem says it backs Ukraine's territorial integrity while Moscow officials assert massive support in captured lands for joining Russia; West has denounced 'sham' votes

Putin expected to declare incorporation of Ukrainian areas into Russia in coming days, using referendum widely denounced as sham

Russian proxies continue to hold breakaway polls, dismissed by Kyiv and its allies as a 'sham'

Separatist Donetsk leade calls referendum widely denounced as pretense 'a historical milestone'; vote clears way for Moscow to claim Ukrainian forces are attacking Russia itself

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev says ballot results in four regions controlled by Moscow would make new borders 'irreversible,' in move that could escalate fighting

'It would be right and symbolic' to hold the votes on Russia's Day of National Unity, party official says