Reports and intelligence indicate that Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to sign decrees annexing the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia after the regions staged referendums and voted heavily in favor of being annexed by the Russian Federation. The reported results of these referendums are: Kherson – 87%; Lukhansk – 98.4%; Zaporizhzhia – 93.1%; and Donetsk – 99.2%.
The Western international community has stated that these referendums are illegal and will not be recognized as de jure Russian territory. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denounces the “sham referendums” as “a new escalation of Putin’s war”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the results of the referendum stating “This farce in the occupied territories cannot even be called an imitation of a referendum.”
Ukraine has declared the 4 organizers (Volodymyr Vysotsky, “head of the Central Election Commission of the DPR”; Olena Kravchenko, “head of the Central Election Commission of the LPR”; Oleksandr Kofman, “head of the Public Chamber of the DPR”; and Maryna Filipova, “adviser to the head of the Luhansk People’s Republic”) as criminal suspects. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk states that “Some lawyers believe that those actions fall under Article 110 part 1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, ‘Infringement on Ukraine’s territorial integrity,’ punishable with a prison term of up to five years.”
There are two main reasons cited for the referendums’ illegality:
• They are organized by Russian installed regional governors after ousting Kiev appointed government officials.
• The 1996 Ukrainian Constitution’s Article 73 states that any referendum vote regarding the de jure status of Ukrainian territory should allow all eligible Ukrainians voters to decide on the matter.
The West also cites the that any vote held under military occupation should be considered fraudulent as the duress of the situation is highly unlikely to produce genuine results resembling the true will of the people. Most often cited is election officials going door-to-door in apartment buildings with soldiers escorting them. Below is an image from an apartment building surveillance camera depicting this.
It is likely that these referendum votes are not meant to legitimize these regions as part of the Russian Federation in the eyes of the West, but in the eyes of the Russian people to maintain domestic support for Russia’s military operations. Russia also stated that after annexation, it would consider Ukrainian attacks on these 4 regions as attacks on Russian soil, justifying military escalation.
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