“Voting” was at gunpoint and the Kremlin controlled the count. On the last day of the referendum, our correspondent saw hundreds of vehicles crossing from Russian-controlled territories
to try to deter Ukrainians from taking back the land he has stolen . Some suspect, too, that three unexplained gas leaks in the undersea Nord Stream pipelines to Europe may have been caused by Russian sabotage.
In Zaporizhia, some of those fleeing described a farcical voting process. Most said they hid from council officials, who often knocked on doors with armed guards to drum up votes. In some cases there were over twice as many guards as officials. Ms Lopushkina said she locked her garden gate and “pretended not to be at home”. Often, the armed guards intimidated locals into putting a cross in the “correct” box.
Yuriy Kulish, a retired police officer from Nova Kakhovka, said Russian soldiers in Kherson had become nervous since the start of a Ukrainian counteroffensive at the end of August. Precision strikes from US-supplied missiles rendered supply bridges across the Dnieper river unusable, he said. Replacement pontoons were also destroyed. A truck full of gravel fell into the water before it could be used to create a new crossing. “They know the way things are going,” he said.
Initially, Russia reportedly blocked military-age males from leaving its occupied territories. This move was widely interpreted as a sign of its intention to draft them soon after the fake referendums—on the spurious grounds that once these parts of Ukraine are annexed to Russia, their residents will be Russian and liable for conscription. On September 26th an unexpected new order from Moscow reversed that policy.
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