Occupied regions of Ukraine plan referendums on joining Russia

Moscow-appointed officials in four partly occupied regions of Ukraine have announced plans to hold referendums on joining Russia in the coming days, in what Kyiv called a desperate attempt by the Kremlin to change the momentum of the war after its forces suffered a series of battlefield defeats.

Kyiv’s western allies also denounced the planned votes, which were announced as Russia’s parliament approved a bill that could pave the way for mass mobilisation of the country’s military, and senior Moscow officials warned that incorporation of the Ukrainian regions into Russia would allow the Kremlin to fight for them with all means at its disposable – including nuclear weapons.

Referendums on joining Russia would be held between Friday and next Tuesday in occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, according to Moscow-installed leaders in those areas of eastern and southeastern Ukraine.

[ Ukraine war: Russia loses full control of Luhansk region ]

“From the very start of the operation … we said that the peoples of the respective territories should decide their fate, and the whole current situation confirms that they want to be masters of their fate,” Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, which it terms a “special military operation”.

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Former Russian president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that “encroachment onto Russian territory is a crime which allows you to use all the forces of self–defence”, which would include the Kremlin’s vast nuclear arsenal.

“This is why these referendums are so feared in Kyiv and the West,” he wrote on social media. “They would completely change the vector of Russia’s development for decades. And not just of our country. The geopolitical transformation of the world would be irreversible once the new territories were incorporated into Russia.”

[ Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has exposed him as both wrong and weak ]

Russian forces do not hold the entirety of any of the four regions, and in all of them they are being kept in check or forced back by Ukrainian troops who drove them out of the northeastern Kharkiv region in a major counterattack this month.

The setback has intensified calls in Russia for full mobilisation of its military reserves, a political risky move which appeared to come closer on Tuesday when deputies approved a Bill to impose stricter punishment for crimes committed by soldiers “during a period of mobilisation or the state of martial law”.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said that “sham ‘referendums’ will not change anything. Neither will any hybrid ‘mobilisation’. Russia has been and remains an aggressor illegally occupying parts of Ukrainian land. Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say.”

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called Russia’s talk of referendums and possible mobilisation “naïve blackmail”.

“This is what the fear looks like. The enemies are afraid, and resort to manipulations. It won’t work. Ukraine will restore its territorial integrity,” he added.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington would “never recognise Russia’s claims to any purportedly annexed parts of Ukraine” and called the planned votes “an affront to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that underpin the international system.”

German chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was “very, very clear that these sham referendums cannot be accepted and are not covered by international law” and dismissed them as part of the Kremlin’s “imperialist aggression” against Ukraine.