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News from the NOS•yesterday, 21:13•Modified yesterday, 22:17
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Paolo Alessandro
publisher abroad
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Paolo Alessandro
publisher abroad
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There had been plans for a referendum for some time, but now the Ukrainian troops standing on the edge of the Lugansk region, the population can suddenly speak as early as this week if they want to join Russia. In Ukraine, the far-reaching consequences of an – inevitable – “yes” are taken into account: general mobilization in Russia and annexed areas and new nuclear threats.
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The referendum will be held from 23 to 27 September, announced the pro-Russian administration of the Lugansk region. Soon after, the other three southeastern regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson followed suit with the same announcement.
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Watch Kherson’s announcement here:
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Possible referendums in various regions in the short term
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“We want the border of the Russian Federation to flow between us and Ukraine. We want to be part of a great Russia”, sounded on the pro-Russian channel Telegram Donbas decides.
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Moscow is behind the initiative. “If they speak out directly in favor of membership, we support them,” Duma chairman Vyachelav Volodin said in response. And Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that this is a local initiative: “The people of Donbas want to have a say in their own destiny”.
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This scenario had already been launched in Crimea in 2014. There, locals would speak out in favor of joining Russia shortly after the Russians occupied the Ukrainian peninsula. After that Moscow showed its willingness to honor “the spontaneous expression of the popular will”.
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“Forever together with Russia”
“Our future is together with Russia – forever” has been read on billboards in the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions since the beginning of the summer. Members of volunteer organizations such as Young Guards and We Together with Russia appeared on the streets to help with preparations for the referendum. The Russian media spread the images.
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“That was propaganda, aimed at the home front in Russia,” journalist Konstantin Ryzhenko said over the phone. “Volunteers were taken by bus to different places for one day. They wore a different shirt at each stop. This gave the impression of busy preparations everywhere. In fact, they left the next day.”
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Ryzhenko, who secretly reported life in occupied Kherson on his Telegram channel but recently fled to the free part of Ukraine, called the billboard operator. “He told me that the Russians went by with machine guns. They had posted those signs. Don’t touch them, that was their message.”
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The results are fixed
More than 60 percent of the population is estimated to have fled the Russian-occupied territories. “This makes it impossible for the referendum to be representative. Let’s assume that 300,000 of Kherson’s original 900,000 inhabitants remain. The Russians have no capacity at all to get so many people to vote,” says reporter Ryzhenko. “Now they call it a referendum on the Internet. They don’t care. Nobody can control it. And the results are already established.”
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According to so-called polls in the Donbas this summer, 70 percent of the local population is in favor of joining Russia. This figure will only increase with the Internet referendum.
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“The Russians are rushing the referendum because of the Ukrainian counter-offensive,” said Olga Aivazovska via Skype from Kiev. You are from the human rights organization Opora, which published a report on the referendum. It outlines the far-reaching consequences of a referendum on the course of the war.
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“Once the occupied territories belong to Russia, Putin’s military doctrine is in effect, which states that in the event of an attack on Russian territory, Russia will deploy nuclear weapons,” Aivazovska said. Russians and Ukrainians are now extensively speculating on the nuclear threat on social media.
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Nuclear doctrine and mobilization
This will change the entire playing field, says Aivazovska. “The nuclear threat thus extends to the entire European continent. After all, Russia claims to be attacked by weapons from the West.”
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Meanwhile, Kremlin observers at home and abroad expect Putin to call for a general mobilization soon after the merged occupied territories with Russia. This is what worries Aivazovska the most.
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“The Russian army is short of manpower across the board. After annexation, Russia will force the local population to take Russian nationality. So it will force Ukrainian men to mobilize.”
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In the “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk, pro-Russian authorities have already enrolled male Ukrainian residents in the army at an earlier stage. Aivazovska: “Then they are sent to the front poorly armed. The basic idea: the Ukrainians will kill the Ukrainians.”
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