Moscow's proxies in occupied Ukraine regions report big votes to join Russia

Russian-installed officials in occupied regions of Ukraine reported huge majorities on Tuesday in favour of becoming part of Russia after five days of voting in so-called referendums that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham.


Reuters | Updated: 27-09-2022 23:32 IST | Created: 27-09-2022 23:32 IST
Moscow's proxies in occupied Ukraine regions report big votes to join Russia

Russian-installed officials in occupied regions of Ukraine reported huge majorities on Tuesday in favour of becoming part of Russia after five days of voting in so-called referendums that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham. Hastily arranged votes had taken place in four areas - Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - that make up about 15% of Ukrainian territory.

Luhansk authorities said 98.5% of people there had voted to join Russia, based on 69% of ballots counted. In Zaporizhzhia, the figure was 92.9%, with more than 70% of votes tallied, while in Kherson the "yes" vote was running at more than 87%, according to the head of the voting committee. No figures were immediately available from Donetsk. Within the occupied territories, Russian-installed officials took ballot boxes from house to house in what Ukraine and the West said was an illegitimate, coercive exercise to create a legal pretext for Russia to annex the four regions.

President Vladimir Putin could then portray any Ukrainian attempt to recapture them as an attack on Russia itself. He said last week he was willing to use nuclear weapons to defend the "territorial integrity" of Russia. Displaced people from the four regions were able to cast votes in Russia, where state news agency RIA said early counts showed numbers in excess of 96% in favour of coming under Moscow's rule.

Ukraine has repeatedly warned that Russian annexation of additional territories would destroy any chance of peace talks, seven months after Russia launched its invasion of its neighbour. It says Ukrainians who helped Russia organise the votes will face treason charges. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the European Union to impose further economic sanctions on Russia to punish it for staging the votes, which he said would not change Ukraine's actions on the battlefield.

The votes mirrored a referendum in Crimea after Russia's seizure of the region from Ukraine in 2014, when Crimea's leaders declared a 97% vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Putin said on state TV on Tuesday that the votes were designed to protect people from what he has called the persecution of ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers by Ukraine, something that Kyiv has denied.

"Saving people in all the territories where this referendum is being held is at the top of our minds and the focus of attention of our entire society and country," he said. Moscow has acted in recent months to "Russify" areas under its control, including by issuing people with Russian passports and rewriting school curriculums.

The referendums were hurriedly brought forward this month after Ukraine seized the momentum on the battlefield by routing Russian forces in the northeastern Kharkiv region. Valentina Matviyenko, head of the upper house of the Russian parliament, said that if the vote results were favourable, it could consider the incorporation of the four regions on Oct. 4, three days before Putin celebrates his 70th birthday.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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