Russian attack | Puppet governments in four Ukrainian regions announced “referendums” – Ukrainian troops advanced in the Luhansk region

Foreign countries|Russian invasion

Russian the puppet governments installed by the government have announced that “referendums” on joining Russia will be organized in four Ukrainian regions.

Voting has been announced in the “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as in the Russian-occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia.

Among other things, the Russian state news agencies Tass and Ria Novosti and the independent Russian-language news website Meduza reported on the votes on Tuesday.

Medusa springs in all four regions, the vote on joining Russia is scheduled to take place on 23-27 September

As for Donetsk, the bill on the matter has already been unanimously approved at the political level, according to Meduza.

Desires to join is thought to speak of the panic caused by the recent advance of the Ukrainian armed forces.

“Referendums” and annexations to Russia could be an excuse for Russia to accelerate the war of aggression.

“Intruding on Russian soil would be a crime that allows the use of all means of self-defense,” former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

In other words, annexation efforts contain a veiled threat to expand the war indefinitely.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, according to Reuters, that the preparation of votes is “a decision that the people living in the regions will make themselves”.

The situation in the background is the recent success of the Ukrainian forces.

At the beginning of September, Ukraine liberated thousands of square kilometers of territories occupied by Russia in the Kharkiv region.

In recent days, Ukraine has advanced towards the Luhansk region, reports the Reuters news agency. Also a news channel CNN confirmed on Tuesday night that Ukraine had liberated the village of Bilohorivka in the Luhansk region.

Bilohorivka is at the gates of the city of Lysitshansk. Russia occupied the area in July after weeks of heavy fighting.

“Obviously, the occupiers are panicking,” said the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyi late Monday night in a televised address.

When President of Russia Vladimir Putin launched a war of aggression in February, he declared Russia’s recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk regions as independent.

Russian and pro-Russian forces have never occupied more than a part of the Donetsk region. Now the grip of the occupiers has also loosened in part of the Luhansk region. In the south, in the direction of Kherson, Ukraine is also conducting a counter-offensive.

If the rebel leaders’ wishes to join Russia were to come true, a situation would arise in which Ukraine would rule over territories that belong to its own country, but which, in Russia’s opinion, are part of Russia.

This would put pressure on Putin to further accelerate the war. The idea pleases Russian war hawks.

“Today’s referendum, tomorrow’s recognition as part of the Russian Federation,” said the editor-in-chief of the RT channel Margarita Simonyan on Monday, a US newspaper of The Washington Post by.

Simonjan is known as a fanatical nationalist supporter of aggressive war. He continued:

“The day after tomorrow – on Russian soil [Luhanskiin tai Donetskiin] the attacks carried out will cause a full-scale war between Ukraine and NATO and Russia, in which case Russia would have a free hand in all respects.”