The Russian occupiers let people “vote” on the streets, in improvised polling stations and during home visits. This is reported by residents of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, which are partially occupied by Russia. From September 23, mock referendums were held there on the regions joining the Russian Federation.
Refusing to take part in the forced “vote” was life-threatening, residents say. Because the representatives of the so-called “election committees” appeared accompanied by armed Russian military personnel.
“Two women and three Russian soldiers with guns asked me if I would vote. When I asked if I had a choice, they said nothing. I had to put a cross where they pointed the gun barrel,” says a woman living in a village near Melitopol in the Zaporizhia region.
She didn’t want to vote, but did so for fear that her 35-year-old son would otherwise be drafted into the Russian army. “It’s a good thing that my husband and son were working in the field right now. I don’t want my son to be taken from me, he’s on their list,” the woman says, crying.
These lists pose a danger to people in the occupied territories, says Oleksiy Kozhel, head of the Voters’ Union of Ukraine. “They create databases because even after six months of occupation they have little information about who is in the occupied territories,” said Koschel.
According to him, the occupiers also collected data during the mock referendums to gauge protest sentiment. They wanted to find out who has a pro-Ukrainian stance, what language people speak and which men are of military age.
Koschel points out that the population does not support the occupiers. This is why the distribution of Russian passports and the introduction of the ruble in the occupied territories failed. The mock referenda would have had to be hastily organized and suffered from understaffing.
According to the Chairman of the Union of Electors of Ukraine, the “voting” was chaotic. In addition, the occupiers resorted to every imaginable method of forgery.
The Russian occupiers had scheduled five days for the so-called “vote”. After just three days, the “Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics” reported a record participation of up to 87 percent – with over a million participants. “These reports are idiotic and unrealistic, because most of the residents have long since left the occupied territories,” writes the head of the Luhansk military administration, Serhiy Hajday, on Telegram.
He notes that the occupiers would even report a turnout of almost 50 percent from the destroyed and almost completely deserted cities of eastern Ukraine, such as Lysychansk, Sievarodonetsk and Rubishne. “The results are fake,” Hajdaj said.
Hanna reports from Cherson how the mock referendum went in southern Ukraine. According to her, the occupiers wanted to provide the propaganda media with images of a pro-Russian population. But things turned out differently. “From 8 a.m. in the so-called polling stations, Soviet songs were played and the organizers waited for the voters with Russian soldiers.
But neither voters came nor did queues form. At 10 a.m. the bars were closed and people were visited at home. But no one opened the door,” says Hanna.
The occupiers also failed to lure people to “vote” with humanitarian aid. “Only people over the age of 70 who wished for the Soviet Union back came. Young people and middle-aged people ignored this circus,” says Hanna.
She assures that despite the terror and persecution, there are pro-Ukrainian people in the city. They would wait for liberation by the Ukrainian army.
An 82-year-old resident of a village near Cherson, on the other hand, was not persuaded by temptations. She reports that armed men came to her and suggested that she vote “for joining Russia”. But she refused.
“They said to me: ‘Grandmother, you can get 10,000 rubles (about 180 euros), also food packages. You just have to vote for Russia.’ I don’t need Russia or alms! In February they killed my grandson at the front,” the woman explains through tears.
The head of the Kherson regional military administration, Yaroslav Yanushevich, notes that during the sham referendums, Russian troops pressured and threatened people. “Collaborators, accompanied by armed occupiers, catch people on the street and threaten to force them to vote,” writes Yanushevych on Telegram.
This is confirmed by residents of the so-called “Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics”. They report that in occupied Luhansk, for example, “polling stations” were set up right in the backyards of residential buildings or at the entrances to markets.
“A bus pulled up and a transparent ballot box was placed next to it. No trace of a secret ballot. People ticked the ballot papers on their knees,” says a resident of Luhansk. According to her, employees of municipal institutions were forced to “vote” several times in different places.
“We were told that the more times the same person votes, the better,” says a woman who works at an educational institution in Luhansk. She says all staff were asked to take copies of ID cards from students who left town.
You should vote for them. Because there were no ready-made voter lists at the place of the “vote”, this was easy, according to the woman. Anyone who refused to take part was threatened with loss of wages and dismissal.
According to the Voters’ Association of Ukraine and the Ukrainian non-governmental organization Opora, the Russian occupiers only used lists for the sham referendums that included people who voluntarily accepted Russian aid, collected their pensions in person from the post office or paid local taxes as entrepreneurs. Voter lists stolen from archives were also used.
The head of Opora, Olha Aivazowska, emphasizes that Russia organized a fake in the occupied territories of Ukraine. “There can be no question of a free and legal expression of will. With the sham referendum at gunpoint, Russia wants to blackmail Ukraine’s western partners,” says Aivazovska.
She believes that the first to suffer from this “vote” will be the people of the occupied territories. Russia will isolate them completely and carry out total mobilization. Russian passports will be forced on them and terror against them will be further intensified.
Adaptation from the Ukrainian: Markian Ostapchuk
Author: Lilia Rzheutska, Anastasia Shepeleva
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The original of this post “”Vote” at gunpoint” comes from Deutsche Welle.
