Posted on 09/23/2022 7:22:28 AM PDT by Kazan
Voting for membership in the Russian Federation has started in four oblast of Ukraine:
Russian proxy officials in four regions — Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, and Kherson and Zaporizka in the south — earlier this week announced plans to hold referendums over four days beginning on Friday. Russia controls nearly all of two of the four regions, Luhansk and Kherson, but only a fraction of the other two, Zaporizka and Donetsk.
Ukrainian officials have dismissed the voting as grotesque theater — staging polls in cities laid to waste by Russian forces and abandoned by most residents.
President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ukraine’s allies for their steadfast support and said “the farce” of “sham referenda” would do nothing to change his nation’s fight to drive Russia from Ukraine.
The Ukrainian regime has resorted to pure terrorism to prevent the votes from happening:
Ukrainian partisans, sometimes working with special operations forces, have blown up warehouses holding ballots and buildings where Russian proxy officials preparing for the vote held meetings. Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that they are engaged in a campaign to assassinate key Russian administration officials; more than a dozen have been blown up, shot and poisoned, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials. Such behavior by the Zelenski regime against its still Ukrainian compatriots will only encourage the people in the four oblast to vote for an alignment with Russia.
The propaganda in the 'west' will declare that the vote is irregular and that the results, likely to be pro-Russian, will be fake.
But a view on historic election outcomes since Ukrainian independence in 1991 show clear geographic preferences in east and south Ukraine for pro-Russian policies:
(graphs at link)
The graphic above is from research published by the Eurasian Research Institute of the International Hoca Ahmet Yesevi Turkish-Kazakh University. Its author writes:
As we can see, the have always been a clear-cut geographical split in the way the regions of Ukraine vote for particular candidates. The East and West division or also referred as Southeast and Northwest division was always present throughout the electoral history of the independent Ukraine. It is conventionally believed that the eastern part of Ukraine is more influenced by Russia politically, economically and culturally. Therefore, the presidential candidates proposing more pro-Russian agenda usually gain much more political support in eastern regions than in other parts of Ukraine. On the other hand, the western part of the country has traditionally been more pro-European with strong reference to traditional core Ukrainian ethnic traditions and values. Consequently, presidential candidates with pro-European political agenda and traditional Ukrainian appeal usually had strong support in western regions of the country. It is interesting to note that preferences of the electorate were not related to the geographical origin or background of the presidential candidates and any candidate could easily become popular in the east as well as in the west. Moreover, the same candidate could be both pro-eastern and pro-western in different periods of time as did Leonid Kuchma in 1994 and 1999, who is the only Ukrainian president to serve two consecutive terms from 1994 to 2005.
The division is consistent with ethnic and linguistic differences between those parts of Ukraine.
In 2014, after the violent fascist coup in Kiev, one of the first laws implemented by the new government removed the Russian language from official use.Instead of overcoming the differences between its people it only sealed the predominant split in Ukraine.
The election promise of the current Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelenski to make peace with the Russia aligned rebellious Donbas region by adhering to the Minsk 2 agreements was rewarded with a large share of southeastern votes for his presidency. However, after having been threatened with death by fascists, Zelenski has made a 180 degree turn and has since posed as Ukrainian nationalist. In consequence he has lost all support in southeastern Ukraine.
The southeastern parts of today's Ukraine have for centuries been part of the central Russian empire. They were only attached to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine under Lenin's rule in 1922 and, in the case of Crimea, in 1954 under Nikita Khrushchev who himself had grown up in the Donbas region.
A likely high turnout and majority vote for membership in the Russian Federation will only correct the historic misalignment created by those illogical transfers.
Hi.
Why do you think there is so much vitriol between FReepers over this Russia / Ukraine mess?
5.56mm
“I wonder if it will take them 2 weeks to count the votes?”
No, I’m sure the results were made up in Moscow months ago.
Now do Ireland. Would that prove that the English speaking areas should be part of the UK?
Hell, let’s just take over Canada, except for Quebec.
I’ll answer your question. It means that Russian trolls have identified FR as an important forum for influencing American opinion. Moscow is pouring in a lot of resources in an attempt to legitimize its illegal and immoral invasion.
The UN has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine is fighting hard against Russia.
As far as I’m concerned, Russia deserves the ass kicking they are about to receive.
The UN is a puppet of the US and the EU.
Hence why the dingus are looking to remove Russia from the security council....
So you can quote the UN all you want.
They are irrelevant, especially to Putin and Russia.
Polls conducted after referendums western media always poop on showed overwhelming support for Russian perspective
Even by Pew which ain’t no Putin loving org
Wouldn’t work without local support which they have in spades
DPR And LPR militias ain’t running on nothing and they are the bulk of the breakaway fighting side till now
Gonna change looks like
They want to remove Russia from the security council because Russia isn’t upholding the principles of the charter.
40 countries have provided weapons and support to Ukraine.
50 countries have pledged to provide support.
That’s relevant to Putin and Russia.
No, that is just the prevailing West/US/UK/NATO/EU propaganda spill. They are talking of removing Russia because Putin Bad, Russia Bad. Simple as that. Again, the UN is irrelevant to Putin/Russia.
DPR and LPR militions are running on Russia funding and weapons.
They may have some local support, but that doesn’t mean the majority of people in those areas supported it.
It’s impossible to tell now, that so many have been run out of the region or killed. The sham vote they are holding means nothing at this point.
Putin Bad because of his actions.
Russia only Bad because they haven’t thrown Putin out yet and are following his orders.
Russians fleeing Russia aren’t bad. Russians protesting the war aren’t bad.
Wait till the US, UK, EU, and NATO designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and Putin/Russia among others start designating the US, UK, EU, NATO as sponsors of terrorism. That should be fun.
Again, mirrors work in your house, apartment or parent’s basement? Countless US folks fled to Canada etc.
At least the Russians are able to openly protest unlike in neo-yatzi Ukraine/Kyiv.
1/3
The 2008 Kosovo “referendum” went against the Serbian constitution. The upcoming referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk, etc, are said by Zel (whom according to reports from arch-conservative Tucker Carlson locked up political opponents and painted all opposition political parties and media with a broad brush that they were pro-Putin if they disagreed with him) to go against the Ukrainian constitution.
So if Biden and his fellow Democrats say no to this for Donetsk, etc, then they have to say no to the 2008 Kosovo vote if they both go against their respective constitutions.
The 2008 Kosovo “referendum” wasn’t even a referendum but merely an assembly vote that the West jumped at accepting.
2/3
Media Support ‘Self-Determination’ for US Allies, Not Enemies
https://fair.org/home/media-support-self-determination-for-us-allies-not-enemies/
3/3
Newsweek
Nearly 90 Percent of the World Isn’t Following Us on Ukraine
9/15/22
“Our familiar system of global political and economic alliances is shifting, and nothing has made this change clearer than the varied reactions to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While the United States and its closest allies in Europe and Asia have imposed tough economic sanctions on Moscow, 87 percent of the world’s population has declined to follow us. [A map on Conservative Treehouse of countries dismissive of Russian sanctions backs this up]. Economic sanctions have united our adversaries in shared resistance.
Nowhere is the shift more apparent than in energy markets where, unlike with currencies, governments cannot simply print what they need. ...
Saudi Arabia, long a committed American partner, has established a close alliance with Russia in the OPEC Plus cartel. The Saudis have very publicly declined the request of an American president to increase oil production. Instead, they imported Russian oil for domestic use to export more of their own production. Last week they even reduced production and made clear they may do so again.
China is selling Europe liquid natural gas (LNG) that originated in Siberia while importing Russian oil at the same time. ...
Meanwhile, kept solvent by Chinese oil purchases, Iran has become the largest customer for Russian wheat.
India’s petroleum minister has stated publicly that his government has no conflict with Moscow and a “moral duty” to keep down energy prices at home by buying Russian oil.
Alliances that were created in part to counter Western economic and political influence are expanding. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have announced their interest in joining the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).
The Shanghai Cooperative Organization currently links China, Russia, India, and Pakistan, among others. Iran plans to join this month while Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are likely to become “dialogue partners” ...” More at:
Those ethnic Russians have been persecuted and killed by neo-Nazis and Ukrainian nationalists for eight years.
We stuck our noses in Ukraine, fomented a revolution in 2014 and enabled, trained and funded those Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis. It's neoconism at is worst and most ugly.
The people in Donetsk and Lugansk are the ones fighting for their liberation and survival.
And, yes, we also used Ukraine as a means of harming Russia. We've been the aggressors. We made Russia our enemy. We pushed into an alliance with China.
Our policy in Ukraine has benefit the political elite and our oligarchs only.
Preach it! You could not be more right, DC, more wrong.
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