Participants will have to answer a question: “Are you in favor of the region leaving Ukraine, creating an independent state and becoming part of Russia?”
The voting process in referendums summoned in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and in the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia, occupied by Russian forces in the framework of the invasion unleashed on February 24, to determine possible accession to Russia began early this Friday, despite the refusal of Ukraine and the international community to recognize the validity of the process .
The vote has started at 8:00 a.m. (7:00 a.m. in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands) and will last until 4:00 p.m., something that will also happen in the following days and until September 27, when the process will end. Russia has also opened polling stations in several cities so that refugees can go to vote.
The pro-Russian authorities in Kherson have pointed out that they expect 750,000 people to turn out to vote, while in the census in Zaporizhia there are 500,000 people, sAccording to the Russian news agency TASS. In both cases, Participants will have to answer a question: “Are you in favor of the region leaving Ukraine, creating an independent state and becoming part of Russia?”
In the case of self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk whose independence was recognized by Russian President Vladimir Putin days before ordering the invasion of Ukraine, voters will have to decide whether they support “the entry of the republic into Russia as a constituent entity of the Russian Federation.”
Putin himself said Wednesday in a speech to the nation in which he announced a “partial mobilization” of the population for the war in Ukraine that Moscow would recognize the result of these referendums. “We will do everything possible to provide security conditions so that referendums are held and the population expresses its will,” he said.
EU and NATO opposition
“We will support the decision on their future, which will be taken by the majority of residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions,” The Russian president reviewed, who also warned that Russia could use “all means” in case of a “threat to Russian territorial integrity”, including nuclear weapons.
Along these lines, the president of the Russian State Duma, Viacheslav Volodin, has expressed himself this Friday, asking the population of these regions to “vote freely” and “fear nothing.” “Make a decision to be part of Russia. We will support you,” he said in a message on his Telegram account in which he stressed that residents of these areas of Ukraine “They have the right to self-determination, contemplated in the Charter of the United Nations.”
“The European Union has made another threat to our country in relation to the referendums. We are aware of our decisions and nothing scares us. The EU did not notice the genocide of the Donbass for eight years and did not think about their safety. He supported the kyiv regime, which was shooting civilians daily. Elders, women and children died,” he denounced.
For its part, the Ukrainian Parliament on Wednesday approved the declaration of inadmissibility of the referendums of accession to Russia proposed by the pro-Russian authorities in these regions. The pro-Russian authorities in Crimea already held a referendum on joining Russia in 2014, the result of which legitimized Putin to annex the peninsula, a move not recognized by the international community.
During the day on Thursday, NATO reaffirmed that it will not recognize the result of the votes, because they “lack legitimacy” and constitute a violation of the Charter of the United Nations. In this regard, the bloc released a statement in which it called on “all states” to reject these attempts at “territorial conquest” by Russia, insisting that the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions ” They are Ukraine.