Short answers, pulled from the story.
Only North Korea and, at the time, Ba'athist Syria recognized Russia's annexation of the four partially occupied regions. The European Union, the United States, and the United Nations all declared the annexation had no legal basis or effect.
On the 12th of October 2022, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution ES-11/4 with 143 nations in favor, 5 against, and 35 abstaining, condemning the illegal referendums and demanding Russia reverse the annexation. At the Security Council, Russia used its veto to block an earlier resolution, with Brazil, China, Gabon, and India abstaining.
Russia claimed roughly 90,000 square kilometers, about 15% of Ukraine's total territory, across Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. At the time of the annexation, not one of the four oblasts was fully under Russian military control.
Zelenskyy declared that Ukraine would not negotiate with Russia as long as Putin remained president and requested expedited, fast-track NATO membership. Surveys by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 82% of Ukrainians in May 2022 and 87% in September 2022 opposed any territorial concessions to Russia.
Ukrainian forces retook the city of Kherson on the 11th of November 2022. Russia had declared Kherson Oblast annexed on the 30th of September 2022 but was unable to hold its regional capital.
Putin delivered a 37-minute address from the St. George Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace, citing Article 1 of the United Nations Charter and calling the annexation the will of millions of people who wanted to be Russian citizens forever. He accused the West of Satanism, blamed the Nord Stream gas pipeline leaks on the Anglo-Saxons, and cited the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as having set a precedent.