- The referendums will be held from 23 to 27 September to ask the public whether they would enter the Russian Federation. Ukraine has described the initiative as the blackmail of Russia. Putin announces that he is going to protect the referendums and that he is going to call 300,000 former military personnel on Wednesday in Ukraine.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has intensified aggression in the north-east and south of the country, in areas dominated by Russia, in order to regain control over them. In this situation, Donbass, Kherson and Zaporizhia have decided to hold a referendum between 23 and 27 September. They will ask the citizens if they would like to join the Russian Federation. 15 per cent of Ukraine ' s territory is represented by the four territories that will propose their integration with Russia.
A referendum between Donets in Donbass and the parliaments of the people’s republics in Luhansk was approved on Monday. On Tuesday, Kherson first joined the initiative and then Zaporizhia. Vladimir Rogov, Russian administrative officer of the latter territory, has stated: “Ideal security conditions do not exist. The sooner we become Russia, the sooner peace will be.”
In the referendum, the President of the People’s Republic of Donetsk, Denis Puxilin, asks the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, to take account of the outcome as soon as possible. Russia has welcomed the referendum decision. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has stated that deciding their future belongs to the territories as something they have defended from the outset. And he adds: “The current situation confirms that they want to own their future.”
Ukraine, for its part, has read as “blackmail” the decision to hold a referendum and has stated that it is related to Russia’s fear of failure. Dmitro Kuleba, Ukrainian Foreign Minister, has announced that there will be no more than “bush referendums” that will change nothing.
In Putin’s latest statements, he said that he would support the referendums: “We will do everything in our power to ensure that there are security measures to carry out the referendums and that the people express their will.” In the same quote he made these statements, he announced that on Wednesday a military mobilization will begin by summoning 300,000 former military personnel in the army to Ukraine “to protect the homeland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the security of our citizens.”