Ukraine: Bogus referendums continue

Created: 09/24/2022, 10:54 am

Construction workers queue at a mobile polling station in the Russian-backed and separatist-controlled Donetsk People's Republic to collect their ballots for the mock referendum.

© Uncredited/AP/dpa

Russia continues to hold sham referendums in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

The people should decide whether to join the giant empire.

The protests continue internationally.

Luhansk/Donetsk - Despite fierce international protests, the second day of mock referendums on accession to Russia has begun in Moscow-held Ukrainian territories.

Russian state media again showed pictures of citizens at the ballot box on Saturday.

The illegal votes in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk and in Zaporizhia and Cherson in the south are scheduled for five days up to and including next Tuesday.

Among other things, a video circulated on social networks that shows armed men in a hallway and is intended to document how the Russian occupiers are forcing local residents to vote.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that in Cherson and Zaporizhia the first men received mobilization notices for the Russian army.

Last Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of his armed forces.

Moscow has been distributing Russian passports in the conquered Ukrainian territories for months.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has therefore warned that the Kremlin will conscript these new Russians to fight against the Ukrainian army after the annexation of their homeland.

"By all means hide from the Russian mobilization," he advised men in the occupied regions.

With the help of the result, Russia wants to incorporate the areas and invokes the “right of self-determination of peoples”.

Neither Ukraine nor the international community recognize the vote under occupying Russia.

These are sham referendums because they are being held without Ukraine's consent, under martial law and not according to democratic principles.

Free work by international independent observers is also not possible.

dpa