Voting began at 8:00 am (7:00 am in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands) and It will last until 16.00., something that will happen in the coming days and until September 27, when the process will end. Russia has also opened ballot boxes in many cities so that refugees can vote.
Pro-Russian officials in Kherson, They expect 750 thousand people to vote, while in the census Zaporizhia has 500,000 people, pAccording to the Russian news agency TASS. In both cases, Participants will have to answer the question: “Are you in favor of securing the region from Ukraine, establishing an independent state and becoming part of Russia?”
In the case of self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk Voters whose independence was recognized by Russian President Vladimir Putin before ordering the invasion of Ukraine will have to decide whether they support the “entry of the republic into Russia as a constituent entity of the Russian Federation”.
Addressing the nation, where he declared a “partial mobilization” of the population for the war in Ukraine, Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow would recognize the result of these referendums. “We will do everything we can to ensure the security conditions for referendums to be held and for the people to express their will,” he said.
EU and NATO opposition
“We will support the decision on their future, which will be taken by the majority of the inhabitants of the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.” The Russian president also warned that in the event of a “threat to Russian territorial integrity”, including nuclear weapons, Russia could use “any means”.
Accordingly, the head of the Russian State Duma, Viacheslav Volodin, expressed himself this Friday, asking the population of these regions to “vote freely” and “fear nothing”. “Decide to be part of Russia. We will support you,” said the inhabitants of these regions of Ukraine, in a statement on his Telegram account. “They have the right to self-determination enshrined in the United Nations Charter.”
“The European Union has made another threat to our country regarding the referendums. We are aware of the decisions we have taken and nothing scares us.. For eight years, the EU did not notice the genocide in Donbass and did not think about their security. He supported the Kyiv regime, which shot civilians every day. The elderly, women and children died,” he said.
The Ukrainian Parliament approved the law on Wednesday. Declaration of inadmissibility of the accession referendums 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, which as a result legitimized Putin’s annexation of the peninsula, this move was not recognized by the international community.
During the day on Thursday, NATO reiterated that it will not recognize the result of the vote. because they are “lack of legitimacy” and constitute a violation of the United Nations Charter. In this context, the bloc issued a statement urging “all states” to reject these “regional conquest” attempts by Russia and insisting that the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia are “Ukrainian.”