Moment soldiers armed with assault rifles ‘force residents to cast their vote in ‘sham’ referendum
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The Kremlin appears to have sent soldiers to force Ukrainians to vote in its staged referendums at gunpoint, according to residents who say troops came to their homes in occupied territories to force the “vote.”
“My family was just forced to vote at gunpoint in Russian cosplay of a ‘referendum’ in southern Ukraine,” said Maxim Eristavi, journalist and co-founder of Hromadske International, a broadcasting station in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian journalist posted a video that claimed to show armed soldiers entering the corridors where his family lives and forcing them to vote to join Russia.
Western countries have accused Russia of organizing illegal referendums in Ukraine as a pretext to annex parts of its neighbor.
Kiev called the exercise a brazen attempt by Russia to hold occupied territory now threatened by the Ukrainian army’s counter-offensive.
Eristavi added that his family members were also forced to participate in the same exercises in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 — in an attempt to fool the foreign public into thinking the vote was free and fair.
Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea are all Ukrainian regions that are at least partially under Russian occupation and where referendums are held – with the results established by Moscow.
Russian state media said the armed guards who enforce the door-to-door voting are there for “security.”
The predetermined outcome would see the Ukrainian territory become an “independent” country under Russian law, before quickly joining the Russian federation as a “federal subject,” according to Kremlin state media.
A Ukrainian journalist has posted a video allegedly showing Russian troops break into his family’s residence before being forced to vote in ‘sham’ referendums in occupied territories of Ukraine
Ukraine and Western countries have accused Russia of organizing illegal referendums on foreign soil as a pretext to annex parts of its neighbor
A copy of the ballot papers handed to people, asking whether or not they agree to be part of Russia
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the regions where the vote is underway will come under “full protection” from Moscow if they are annexed by Russia.
He said any area “further anchored” in Russia will be “under the full protection of the state.”
In the four-day vote, residents were forced to vote and banned from leaving their area, Kiev said.
The votes enable Putin to tell his own people that any Ukrainian attack to reclaim his territories is an attack on Russia itself — allowing the Kremlin to justify mass mobilization, where more than 2,000 Russians have been arrested for protesting.
More images have surfaced of armed troops breaking into residents’ homes during the days of the voting.
Serhiy Haidai, governor of occupied Luhansk, said some cities under Russian occupation have been completely shut down to ensure people vote – with any crosses in the ‘no’ column written down in a ‘notebook’.
A woman in Melitopol told the BBC there was one round of voting for the entire household, rather than for individual residents.
Meanwhile, state media reported that an unfeasible 97 percent of people in two of those regions – Donetsk and Luhansk – are in favor of joining Russia.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Russian officials had set targets for fabricated turnout in advance.
Ballot boxes have also been opened across Russia itself, ostensibly to allow displaced Ukrainians to vote, but in reality they offer more opportunities for electoral fraud.
The personal vote will only take place on September 27, state media said. But the result is not in dispute.
“The United States will never recognize Ukrainian territory as anything but part of Ukraine,” President Biden said in a release.
“Russia’s referenda are a sham – a false pretext to try to annex parts of Ukraine by force, in flagrant violation of international law, including the United Nations Charter.”
Votes are being held in four areas currently under Russian control: Donetsk and Luhansk, which together form the Donbas, as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhya
Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Russian parliament, said residents of the occupied regions voted ‘life or death’ in the referendums.
Denis Pushilin, the separatist leader of the Moscow-backed authorities in the Donetsk region, called Friday’s referendum “a historic milestone.”
Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of Russia’s lower house, the State Duma, addressed the occupied regions in an online statement on Friday, saying: “If you decide to join the Russian Federation, we will support you.”
Western leaders have declared the referendums a sham, saying they have no legitimacy, while urging other governments not to recognize the results.
A Russian mercenary with the symbol of the infamous Wagner military group stands guard outside a polling station in occupied Ukraine
Putin announced the “partial mobilization” of the Russian population, forcing hundreds of thousands of men into the military, after the Ukrainian military recaptured large swaths of territory invaded by Russia in the brutal war that broke out on February 25.
New laws have extended soldiers’ contracts indefinitely, meaning they can’t just quit if they don’t want to keep fighting.
As moods surged in the occupied territories, Russian social media sites were full of dramatic scenes of tearful families saying goodbye to men leaving military mobilization centers.
In cities across the vast country, men hugged their crying relatives before leaving as part of the conscription.
“Russian commanders don’t care about the lives of Russians – they just need to fill the empty spaces left by the dead, wounded, those who have fled or the Russian soldiers who have been captured,” Ukrainian President Zelensky said on Saturday.
Russian anti-war activists, meanwhile, planned more protests against the mobilization.