Extract from ABC News
Armed groups in Moscow-held regions of Ukraine are going into people's homes to coerce them to vote in a referendum to join Russia, according to a Ukrainian politician.
Key points:
- Russian-installed leaders announced on Tuesday a referendum would be held
- Residents in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia will be asked if they want to become part of Russia
- The result is expected to be in Moscow's favour
Russian officials have also banned an entire town from leaving until the ballot was over, Serhiy Gaidai, the Ukrainian governor of the Luhansk region, said.
Voting began on Friday in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
The referendums, announced on Tuesday, are widely considered to be a precursor to illegal annexation of the four regions, which together make up about 15 per cent of Ukrainian territory.
The next day, Russian President Vladimir announced a military draft expected to deliver 300,000 troops, after losing ground to Ukranian forces.
According to Mr Gaidai, the head of a company in the Russian-held town Bilovodsk told employees the referendum was mandatory and anyone who refused to vote would be fired and their names given to the security service.
Mr Gaidai decried the plebiscites as "elections without elections".
He said people were being forced to fill out "pieces of paper" without privacy in kitchens and residential yards, with towns sealed off so people could not leave to avoid voting.
And in the town of Starobilsk, he said Russian authorities have banned people from leaving until Tuesday, and armed groups had been sent to search homes and coerce people to take part in the referendum.
"Today, the best thing for the people of Kherson would be not to open their doors," said Yuriy Sobolevsky, the displaced Ukrainian first deputy chairman of the Kherson regional council.
Annexation would give Russia power 'to use all forces of self-defence'
The ballot will run until Tuesday, and the result is expected to go in Moscow's favour.
That would give the Kremlin pretext to claim Ukraine's attempts to recapture occupied territories are an attack on Russia.
"Encroachment onto Russian territory is a crime which allows you to use all the forces of self defence," said former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, in a post on Telegram.
Officials will bring ballots to people's houses for the first four days, with regular polls only opening for Tuesday.
Polls have also opened in Russia for refugees from the area to vote.
Denis Pushilin, a separatist leader of Moscow-backed authorities in the Donetsk region, called the referendum on Friday "a historical milestone."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy only briefly mentioned the "sham referenda" in his nightly address in which he switched from speaking in Ukrainian to Russian to tell Russian citizens they are being "thrown to their deaths."
"You are already accomplices in all these crimes, murders and torture of Ukrainians," Mr Zelenskyy said.
"Because you were silent. Because you are silent. And now it's time for you to choose."
The plebiscites have also been denounced as an illegal farce by world leaders including US President Joe Biden, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as NATO, the European Union and the OSCE.
NATO has said the "sham referenda" are "illegal and illegitimate".
The OSCE, which monitors elections, said the outcomes would have no legal force because they do not conform with Ukraine law or international standards.
'Masters of their own fate'
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week that people "be masters of their own fate".
The process is similar to Russia's takeover of Crimea in 2014, which the international community has not recognised.
The vote there, criticised internationally as rigged, had an official result of 97 per cent in favour of formal annexation.
Russia already considers Luhansk and Donetsk, which together make up the Donbas region Moscow partially occupied in 2014, to be independent states.
"Voting has started in the referendum on Zaporizhzhia region becoming a part of Russia as a constituent entity of the Russian Federation! We are coming home!" said Vladimir Rogov, an official in the Russian-backed administration of that southern region of Ukraine.
Some workers exempt from mobilisation
Russia also said on Friday it was exempting some bankers, IT workers and journalists from being drafted into the army under Mr Putin's "partial mobilisation" of 300,000 additional troops.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said some employees working in critically important industries would be excluded from the draft in a bid to "ensure the work of specific high-tech industries, as well as Russia's financial system".
The exceptions apply to some IT workers, telecommunications workers, finance professionals, as well as some employees at "systemically-important" mass media outlets and interdependent suppliers including registered media and broadcasters.
Russia classifies major employers and core companies in set industries as "systemically-important" if they meet certain thresholds in terms of headcount, revenue or annual tax payments.
The classification allows firms to get special benefits from the Kremlin such as government-backed loans, bailouts and state investment, most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the media outlets previously classified as such are a host of state-run TV channels, radio stations, news agencies, and newspapers, as well as some of Russia's few privately-held media outlets.
The defence ministry said heads of companies should draw up lists of their employees who meet the criteria and can be excluded from the draft.
Many Russian companies appear to have been caught off guard by Putin's mobilisation order, which followed weeks of speculation about how Russia would respond to a conflict now entering its seventh month in which Kyiv and the West say Russia has suffered tens of thousands of casualties.
"We're looking into it for now. We're trying to understand how this will work," a source at one large non-state company told Reuters on Friday shortly after the defence ministry issued its statement.
AP/Reuters
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