Russia launched referendums aimed at annexing four occupied regions of Ukraine, drawing condemnation from Kyiv and Western nations, which dismissed the votes as a sham and pledged not to recognize the results
Seen as paving the way for Russian escalation of warKyiv says residents forced to vote in sealed-off townslaunched referendums
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a nightly address that the votes would be "unequivocally condemned" by the world, along with the mobilisation Russia began this week, including in Crimea and other areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia."These are not just crimes against international law and Ukrainian law, these are crimes against specific people, against a nation," Zelenskiy said.
"Hide from Russian mobilisation in any way you can. Avoid draft orders. Try to move to the territory of free Ukraine," he said, urging those who did end up in the Russian armed forces to "sabotage," "interfere" and pass on intelligence to Ukraine. Voting in the provinces of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the east and southeast, representing about 15% of Ukrainian territory, was due to run from Friday to Tuesday.
"In our view, that's enough for the first day of voting," the head of Kherson's Russian-installed election commission, Marina Zakharova, was quoted as saying.
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