A Russian official stationed in the Moscow-controlled region of southern Ukraine said today that a referendum on the region’s union with Russia could be held in early autumn.
The announcement by the head of the occupation administration in Zaporizhia, Yevgeny Balitsky, marks a further step towards the Russification of areas of Ukraine that Moscow has seized by force and where it is encouraging residents to apply for Russian passports.
“The mechanisms (for holding a referendum) are being formed. The referendum will determine what the residents of the Zaporizhia region want and how they want to live,” he said.
Ria Novosti agency cites another official who is quoted as saying that the referendum is expected to be held in the first fortnight of September.
Russia has said it was forced to send its troops into Ukraine to demilitarize and “de-Naziize” the country, arguments that Kyiv and the West have dismissed as pretexts for an illegal land grab.
Russia and its proxies have seized most of the Zaporizhia region along Ukraine’s southern coast, but Ukraine’s military still controls the north, including the city of Zaporizhia, the largest urban center, where more than half of the population lives of the pre-war population of the region.
Zaporizhia straddles eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region where Russia claims it is fighting to prop up the self-proclaimed “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, breakaway entities recognized only by Russia, Syria and North Korea.
Russia’s proxies in Kherson, another occupied region north of Crimea, also plan to hold a referendum on its union with Russia later this year.
The Kremlin says the vote is a matter for officials in those regions and has not commented on the prospect of those entities joining Russia.
Russia’s ambassador to Britain said last week that Russian forces were unlikely to withdraw from areas on Ukraine’s southern coast that the Russian military has seized since the invasion began on February 24.
SOURCE: AMPE
Source: Capital
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