Explainer | What’s behind Russia’s referendums in occupied Ukraine?
- Voting in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces is due to run from Friday to Tuesday
- The referendum move was widely condemned by the West as illegitimate and a precursor to illegal annexation
Four occupied regions in Ukraine started voting on Friday in Kremlin-engineered referendums on whether to become part of Russia, setting the stage for Moscow to annex the areas in a sharp escalation of the nearly seven-month war.
Ukraine and its Western allies have rejected the votes as illegitimate and neither free nor fair, saying they will have no binding force.
A look at the referendums and their potential implications:
Why are the referendums happening?
The Kremlin has used this tactic before. In 2014, it held a hastily called referendum in Ukraine’s Crimea region that also was denounced by the West as illegal and illegitimate. Moscow used the vote as a justification to annex the Black Sea peninsula in a move that was not recognised by most of the world.
On Tuesday, authorities in the separatist Luhansk and Donetsk regions that make up Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas abruptly announced that referendums on joining Russia would be held starting Friday. Moscow-backed officials in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south also called votes.
The moves followed months of conflicting signals from Moscow and separatist officials about the referendums that reflected the shifts on the battlefield.