Elections will be held in the provinces of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, where from today until September 27 what Kyiv and the international community have dubbed a “farce referendum” on joining Russia will be held.
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Luhansk Mayor Sergey Haidai said in a Telegram post that Russian forces are forcing residents to vote and forbidding them to leave the area. “According to the information available, the occupiers are forming armed groups to encircle houses and force people to take part in the so-called ‘referendum,'” he said. In addition, Haidai said that “those who do not vote will be automatically fired.” In some areas, he added, “authorities banned local people from leaving the city between September 23 and 27.”
Zaporizhzhia City Council secretary Anatoly Kurtev said instead that “local residents are promised cash prizes and household appliances to provide passport data and obtain citizenship of the Russian Federation.”
The vote will be held “door-to-door and in communities for security reasons,” Tass wrote on the eve of the vote. Fighting is taking place in these regions, Ukrainian forces are advancing on the territory, part of the population has fled, the rest is under Russian military occupation. The referendums will also seek to get minors aged 13 to 17 to vote, including children from orphanages, to increase the number of voters, according to Ukrainian security services quoted by Ukrainska Pravda. “In order to strengthen control over turnout, minors must be accompanied to the squares by their parents, guardians or representatives of the so-called orphanages of the temporarily occupied territories,” Ukrainian services report.
As if it were a normal election, TASS listed the number of seats set up in Ukraine, adding that it will also be possible to vote in Russia. In the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic, 1.5 million ballot papers have been printed, while in the Zaphorzhzhia and Kherson regions 500,000 and 750,000 people are on the electoral rolls respectively. The agency also releases polls that predict high attendance between 72% and 87%. To complete the fiction, we speak of the presence of international observers, but without giving numbers or countries of origin.
Tass also stressed that due to the threat of Ukrainian bombing, local authorities are taking security measures. And there is talk of police officers who will accompany election workers on house-to-house operations.
New sanctions against Russia
New sanctions against Russia are coming soon. The political message, of course, was conveyed both by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, “we are ready to impose further economic costs on Russia,” and by EU High Representative Josep Borrell, “we will examine and accept.” new restrictive measures, both personal and sectoral”. A reaction deemed necessary after the escalation wanted by Vladimir Putin with the mobilization and the announcement of the referendums on the annexation of the occupied territories in Ukraine.
Zelensky
Meanwhile, a video message from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Russians to “protest” against the partial mobilization ordered by President Vladimir Putin. “Fifty-five thousand Russian soldiers have died in these six months of the war. Tens of thousands are wounded and maimed. Do you want more? No? Then protest survive, are they “run away or surrender”.
Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the referendums on union with Russia being held in the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions are in response to President Zelenskyy’s call for the Russians to leave Ukraine. “The apotheosis was an interview Mr. Zelenskyy gave on August 5 last year, in which he advised all those who consider themselves Russians to go to Russia for the sake of their children and grandchildren,” Lavrov said, adding, that recent decisions on referendums “are a response to his wish (von Zelensky, ed.)”.
“The goal of the Western states is obvious, they do not hide it and they declare it: to prolong hostilities as much as possible, despite the casualties and destruction, in order to exhaust and weaken Russia,” Lavrov said in a speech before the Security Council of the Un.
“Such a line means the direct interference of Western countries in the Ukraine conflict, leading them to participate in it – added after reports by TASS – Also the deliberate incitement to this conflict by the collective West goes unpunished.”
At the United Nations, Lavrov met Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin on the sidelines of the General Assembly, according to a telegram from the Russian Foreign Ministry, which also published a photo of the handshake.
The protests
From the Russian Republic of Dagestan in the Caucasus comes news of protests against the mobilization of reservists who want to go to Ukraine and fight. Two videos are shown on the Guardian website, one showing a motorcade blocking a highway in Babaiurt in protest, the other showing a heated exchange between a group of men and a recruitment officer. The woman explains that we must fight to defend the future, but a man replies: “We don’t even have a present, what future are you talking about?”.