Kool-Aid. Give residents of Zaporozhiye a right to vote and they’d vote for Russia in a heart beat. Regarding uncontrolled areas the Ukrainian policies are self-defeating. If smearing everyone as collaborator, cutting services and stealing bank accounts wasn’t enough, showering residential areas with anti-personnel mines sure was.
The Ukrainian side has confirmed today that the collaborators facing treason charges are those who facilitated in the setup and execution of these fake referendums, not the people being coerced into voting.
800,000 people in and around northern Zaporizhzhia (including those from the south of the Oblast temporarily displaced) were denied a vote.
30,000 people in Russia were given a vote.
4 million displaced people from across all four regions were not balloted.
Even if you were correct to say that the majority of those people would’ve supported the annexation, they had no opportunity to vote.
Tell you what: if that sounds credible to you, how about Poland and Lithuania holding a referendum on annexation of Kaliningrad based on Prussian Lithuania history.
Ballots the Oblast, winner takes all... But doesn’t ballot anyone in any town west of Gvardeysk.
By Putin’s demented logic, the declaration of 15 towns for independence from Russia is enough to not bother asking how the population of Kaliningrad, Svetly or Baltiysk felt.
Exact same logic.