Tuesday is the final day of a ballot for Russian-held regions of Ukraine which the government in Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss as a sham.
According to the report, nearly four million people from the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, are being asked to attend polling stations and vote in so-called referendums on joining Russia.
This follows four days of early voting during which allegations of intimidation multiplied as election officials went house to house accompanied by armed guards.
The votes, called with just a few days’ notice, serve a deadly serious purpose as they will be used by the Kremlin to legitimize its invasion aims.
If Russia absorbs these regions, making up about 15% of Ukraine’s territory, it could take the war to a new and more dangerous level, with Moscow portraying any attempt by Ukraine to regain them as an attack on its sovereign territory.
There is now speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin may announce the four regions’ annexation in a speech to a joint session of Russia’s parliament on Friday.
In March 2014 he announced that Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula had been annexed just a few days after a likewise unrecognized referendum was held.
BBC/Taiwo Akinola
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David Dzidzikashvili says:
The Ukrainian military and political leadership had been able turn the tide around and inflict devastating strategic losses on the Russian military. The Ukrainian military was able to quickly acquire the knowledge and expertise of the NATO & Western military equipment & weaponry in a very short timeframe and effectively use it against the Russian forces. The results are impressive and visible: Within days the Ukrainians will be able to take over Lyman and further penetrate the Lugansk/Donbass southern frontlines. Strategically this is a very important move. However, will Putin who feels cornered with his military failures use the tactical (smaller scale) nuclear weapons to change the course of the war? With the sham & fraudulent referendums it feels like Putin is all in… In addition, with forced mobilization of Russians it feels like Putin is playing this game with the usual Russian military playbook he utilized in Georgia, Chechnya, Crimea and Syria: win the war by spilling more civilian blood, inflict more civilian terror, rapes, murder of civilians and keep committing more war crimes to further inflict more fear and terror.
At this point the NATO nations should issue more direct and stricter threats against Putin and even consider closing the borders to the Russians who are escaping the country. These same people, the vast majority of them (75%-80%) supported Putin’s bloodshed and war vs Ukraine and now they also need to held responsible. They need to stay in Russia and protest there against Putin regime and not simply escape and claim refugee status, when they absolutely do not deserve it.
This war will end within few months or a year at maximum, however it might be possible that Putin feeling cornered utilizes the tactical nukes (vs strategic). This will be the last and final nails to his coffin and this will forever destroy Russia as a country. If Putin makes this strategic mistake, there will be no more Russia and instead of it we will have 10+ more independent republics. And maybe this is the best outcome for the world peace and long-term stability on the Eurasian continent?