Vladimir Putin’s party, United Russia, proposed on Wednesday to organize referendums on November 4 in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian forces to attach them to Russia.
“Donetsk, Lugansk and many other Russian cities will finally find their home base. And the Russian world, now divided by formal borders, will regain its integrity,” said United Russia General Council Secretary Andrei Tourchak, quoted by the party.
November 4, Day of National Unity in Russia
“It would be appropriate to organize these referendums in the Donbass and the territories liberated on November 4,” added Mr Tourtchak, quoted by the Ria Novosti news agency. The official refers to the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk (East), whose independence Moscow recognized just before its February 24 offensive, as well as the regions of Kherson and Zaporijia which the Russian army largely occupies.
“We are going to prepare for this concrete date”, reacted according to the Russian agencies an official of the authorities put in place by Moscow in Kherson, Kirill Stremoussov. November 4 is National Unity Day in Russia, which commemorates a popular uprising in the 17th century that expelled Polish occupying forces from Moscow.
Already a referendum in 2014
The Russian troops, which entered Ukraine on February 24, occupy swaths of territory mainly in the south of the country, in particular the city of Kherson which had 280,000 inhabitants before the war. Pro-Russian separatists have controlled most of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the industrial east of the country since 2014.
Russia has already organized in March 2014 a referendum in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula which it annexed following this vote and which had been preceded by an intervention by Russian special forces. The Russian occupation authorities in Ukraine have been floating the idea of a referendum on joining Russia for months, but the Kherson administration said on Monday that the vote was uncertain in the immediate future because of the counter-offensive. currently being carried out in this region by Ukrainian forces.
Russia has distributed Russian passports to residents of some occupied territories in Ukraine, having already done so in recent years with those in the east under separatist control.