Moscow released what it called vote tallies showing support for four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces to join Russia.
The Russian-installed administrations of at least two of the four provinces, Luhansk and Kherson, formally asked President Vladimir Putin to incorporate them into Russia.From our newsroom to your inbox at noon, the latest headlines, stories, opinion and photos from the Toronto Sun.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails.
Residents who escaped to Ukrainian-held territory in recent days have told of people being forced to tick ballots in the street by roving officials at gunpoint. Footage filmed during the exercise showed Russian-installed officials taking ballot boxes from house to house with armed men in tow.“This farce in the occupied territories cannot even be called an imitation of a referendum,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in video address overnight.
NATO and the European Union warned of the need to protect critical infrastructure from what they called “sabotage,” though officials stopped short of saying who they blamed. The Kremlin said any theory that might point fingers at Russia for blowing up its own pipelines would be “stupid.” The annexation is part of a huge escalation strategy announced by Putin last week, along with the swift call-up of hundreds of thousands of Russian men to fight, and a new threat to use nuclear weapons, which he said was “not a bluff.”
“It’s funny. Nobody voted, yet the results are in,” laughed Lyubomir Boyko, 43, originally from Golo Pristan, a village in Russian-occupied Kherson province, as he waited with his family on Wednesday outside a UN aid office at a refugee reception centre.
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