Russian President Vladimir Putin’s party, United Russia, proposed on Wednesday to hold referendums on the territories under Russian control in Ukraine, with the aim of annexing them to Russia.
“Donetsk, Lugansk and many other Russian cities will eventually return to their home port. And the Russian world, currently divided by formal borders, will regain its integrity,” United Russia General Council Secretary Andrei Turchak was quoted by The Party as saying. .
“It would be timely to hold these referendums in Donbass [leste ucraniano] and in the liberated territories on November 4,” Turtchak added, quoted by the Ria Novosti news agency.
The official was referring to the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, to the east of Ukrainian territory, whose independence Moscow recognized even before the start of its offensive on February 24, as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, which the Russian army in mostly occupies
“We are going to prepare for this specific date,” Kirill Stremoossov, an official of the authorities installed by Moscow in Kherson, reacted, according to the main Russian agencies.
November 4 corresponds, in Russia, to the day of National Unity, which commemorates a popular uprising of the 17th century that expelled the Polish occupation forces from Moscow.
Russian troops currently occupy swathes of territory mainly in southern Ukraine, including the city of Kherson, which had a population of 280,000 before the war.
Pro-Russian separatists have controlled most of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the country’s industrial east since 2014.
Russia already held a referendum in March 2014 in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that it annexed after that vote, preceded by an intervention by Russian special forces.
Russian occupation authorities in Ukraine have been talking for months about the idea of holding referendums on annexation to Russia, but the Kherson administration said on Monday that the result of the vote was uncertain due to the counter-offensive by Ukrainian forces that was is currently taking place in the region. . .
Russia has distributed Russian passports to inhabitants of some occupied territories in Ukraine, after having done the same in recent years in territories of eastern Ukraine, under the control of pro-Russian separatists.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine has already caused the flight of more than 13 million people -more than six million internally displaced persons and more than seven million to neighboring countries-, according to the latest UN data. , which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion – justified by Putin with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by the generality of the international community, which has responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing political and economic sanctions on Russia.
The UN presented 5,718 dead civilians and 8,199 wounded as confirmed since the beginning of the war, which entered today at 196, highlighting that these figures are far below the real ones.
Source: TSF
