Moscow appeared poised to annex large parts of Ukraine on Wednesday after declaring victory in a series of deeply flawed elections in the occupied territory.
The sham referendum, which began last weekA surprisingly favorable result returned, with Moscow claiming a landslide victory in favor of the Russian annexation.
The vote – going door-to-door in areas occupied by armed Russian troops, where Ukrainian citizens believed to have been tortured for dubious allegiance to Kyiv – has been condemned as illegitimate by Ukraine and its Western allies. Is.
“Forcing people in these regions to stuff certain papers into gun barrels is another Russian crime during its aggression against Ukraine,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Referendums were held in the occupied parts of the Ukrainian provinces of Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk and Donetsk.
Russian occupation officials in those areas said on Wednesday they would now formally request recognition from the Kremlin as Russian territory.
A similar referendum was used in 2014 as an excuse for Russia to annex the Crimean peninsula, which the international community still considers to be part of Ukraine.
Following that merger, mock referendums were held in small areas of Luhansk and Donetsk to declare independent “people’s republics” around the nominated capital cities of those provinces.
Ahead of the referendum last week, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said the merger would make the Ukrainian territories an “irreversible” addition to Russia and allow Moscow to use “any means” to defend them. .
“Encroachment on Russian territory is a crime that allows you to use all the forces of self-defense,” said Medvedev.
post with wires