In late September 2022, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian-installed officials in Ukraine staged so-called referendums on the annexation of occupied territories of Ukraine by Russia. They were widely described as sham referendums by commentators and denounced by various countries. The validity of the results of the referendums has only been accepted by North Korea.
The votes were conducted in four areas of Ukraine – the Russian-occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, and the Russian-appointed military administrations of Kherson Oblast and Zaporizhzhia Oblast, captured and occupied in the first week of the 2022 invasion – as well as in Russia. At the time of the referendums, Russia did not fully control any of the four regions, where military hostilities were ongoing. Much of the population had fled since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The referendums were illegal under international law and have been condemned by the United Nations as violations of the United Nations Charter.
On 30 September 2022, Russia's president Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts of Ukraine in an address to both houses of the Russian parliament. The United Nations, Ukraine, and many other countries condemned the annexation.
Background
Under the conditions of Russian military occupation and complete dominance of Russian media, the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine were promised the inclusion of these regions into Russia, as with Crimea. In Russia, a 2015 poll by the Levada Center showed that 19% of polled Russians wanted eastern Ukraine to become part of Russia. In March 2021, 25% of polled Russians supported the annexation of the Donbas separatist republics to Russia.
Vladimir Kypen, the director of the Donetsk Institute for Social Research and Political Analysis, suggested that Russia's refusal to recognise referendums held in Donbas might have been influenced by low support for joining Russia: at the time, 35% of the population of Donbas and "nearby districts" supported joining Russia, while 65% saw themselves as part of Ukraine. However, according to Kypen, general opinion shifted by 2020: in the rebel-held Donbas, 45-50% supported joining Russia, 20-25% wished for return to Ukraine, and 20-30% were ready to accept being a part of either country as long as the war ended.
In the context of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials spoke about joining even before the deployment of troops: on 21 February, during a meeting of the Security Council of Russia, Sergey Naryshkin mixed up the topic of conversation and directly supported their entry into the Russian Federation. The reservation gave rise to many rumors about the reality of this plan. Later, the heads of the DPR and the LPR Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik announced plans to hold referendums, but with the proviso that voting would be held after the end of the war.
On 9 June, on the 350th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great, Russian president Vladimir Putin described the land that had been conquered by Peter in the Great Northern War against Sweden as land being returned to Russia. He also compared the task facing Russia today to that of Peter's.
In the Kherson Oblast, rumours about the creation of the "Kherson People's Republic" or annexation appeared immediately after the occupation in March. Kherson residents responded with rallies under the slogan "Kherson Is Ukraine", which were repressed, with protestors being kidnapped. Local journalist Oleg Baturin, a victim of such a kidnapping, spoke about the use of torture and humiliation against him. The occupying authorities of the Kharkiv Oblast ruled out a formal vote until Russia occupied the entire region. The Russian military-appointed authorities of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast in August signed a decree on preparations for the referendum. However, the decision to hold referendums is not under the jurisdiction of local authorities, but under the administration of the president of Russia.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized that holding referendums in the occupied territories would eliminate the possibility for negotiations for Russia. Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk added that the participation of Ukrainian citizens in these elections would be regarded as collaborationism, which is punishable by imprisonment for up to 12 years with confiscation of property.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, before the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russia planned to hold a referendum in Kharkiv Oblast in November, with a planned 75% vote in favour.
In parallel, on 21 September, Vladimir Putin announced mobilization in Russia, which indicated the desire of the Russian leadership to further escalate the war with Ukraine.
Organization
The preparation of referendums and the formation of a new image of Russia after the annexation of Ukrainian territories were entrusted to the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Sergey Kiriyenko. Under his leadership, an image was formulated for an external audience – Russia as a "continent of freedom" for supporters of right-wing ideologies from all over the world.
As Meduza reported, the organization of the referendums was handled by the Russian State Council's Administration for Ensuring Affairs under the leadership of Alexander Kharichev, a close associate of Kiriyenko. The voting was directly supervised by Kharichev's deputy Boris Rappoport, who is considered a crisis manager and specializes in problematic election campaigns, and since 2014, together with Vladislav Surkov, he has been involved in the affairs of the DPR and the LPR. The chief technologist and coordinator of the referendums was the vice-governor of Sevastopol, Sergei Tolmachev.
Rappoport also selected employees and political technologists with experience in working with the opposition for the role of "political instructors" in the occupation administrations. As Meduza's sources noted, despite salaries of up to 1–2 million rubles a month, few people were ready to go to the occupied territories. and key positions in the governments of the DPR and the LPR were appointed in preparation for the referendums by an official of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vitaliy Khotsenko, and a former vice-governor of the Kurgan Oblast, Vladislav Kuznetsov. According to the interlocutor of the publication, the Russian authorities planned to soon remove Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik and replace them with completely controlled functionaries.
According to Meduza, the Russian authorities planned to hold referendums under the slogan "Together with Russia" (it appeared in the campaign in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and a forum of the same name was held in Kherson). The alternative slogan "New Russia", which implied a "new quality" and a stronger Russia, did not please Vladimir Putin and members of the Security Council. The IMA-Consulting group, associated with the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Alexey Gromov, was responsible for the campaign preparations for the referendums.
Russian official Alexander Malkevich of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation claimed that over 100 "international observers" from 40 countries were present at the referendums, after Ukrainian intelligence sources had warned that Russian special services had been recruiting foreigners, who would face criminal liability. No observers from international organizations such as the OSCE or Council of Europe were present.
Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
The Russian-led militants of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic declared independence from Ukraine in 2014. Pro-Russian separatists held discredited independence referendums in May 2014. After invading Ukraine in February 2022, Russia started preparations to hold referendums in occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk.
On 19 September, the public chambers of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics appealed to their heads of state with a request to "immediately" hold a referendum on joining Russia. Soon, the State Duma announced that a referendum on the accession of the LPR to Russia would be held in the autumn "in the near future."
On 20 September, the People's Council of the Luhansk People's Republic scheduled a referendum on the republic's entry into Russia as a federal subject for 23–27 September. Soon after, the People's Council of the Donetsk People's Republic announced that the referendum on the entry of the DPR into the Russian Federation would be held on the same date.
Questions
In the Donetsk People's Republic, the referendum question was phrased as Вы за вхождение Донецкой Народной Республики в состав Российской Федерации на правах субъекта Российской Федерации? ("Do you approve of the Donetsk People's Republic being incorporated into the Russian Federation with subject rights of the Russian Federation?"). The same wording, with only the name of the republic changed, was used on the ballots issued across the Luhansk People's Republic: Вы за вхождение Луганской Народной Республики в состав Российской Федерации на правах субъекта Российской Федерации? ("Do you approve of the Luhansk People's Republic being incorporated into the Russian Federation with subject rights of the Russian Federation?"). Since neither entity recognizes the status of Ukrainian as an administrative language of any kind, the text on the ballots was printed exclusively in Russian.
Results
According to the results released by the Russian Central Election Commission through its sections in the DPR and the LPR, 99.23% (2,116,800 voters) supported the annexation in Donetsk and 98.42% (1,636,302 voters) in Luhansk. The turnouts were 97.51% (2,131,207 voters) and 94.15% (1,662,607 voters), respectively.
After these figures were released, Leonid Pasechnik, the Head of the Luhansk People's Republic, said that he plans on visiting Moscow to request the admission of Luhansk into the Russian Federation.
Kherson Oblast
The Russian military occupation of parts of Kherson Oblast began on 3 March 2022, when its capital city was captured by the Russian military after the six-day Battle of Kherson.
On 12 March, Ukrainian officials claimed that Russia was planning to stage a referendum in Kherson to establish the Kherson People's Republic, similar to the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic. Serhii Khlan, deputy leader of the Kherson Oblast Council, claimed that the Russian military had called all the members of the council and asked them to cooperate. Lyudmyla Denisova, Ombudsman of Ukraine, stated that the referendum would be illegal because "under Ukrainian law any issues over territory can only be resolved by a nationwide referendum". Later that day, the Kherson Oblast Council passed a resolution stating that the proposed referendum would be illegal.
On 11 May 2022, Kirill Stremousov, a deputy head of the Kherson military–civilian administration, announced his readiness to send President Vladimir Putin with a request for Kherson Oblast to join the Russian Federation, noting that there would be no creation of the "Kherson People's Republic" or referendums regarding this matter. Commenting on these statements, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that this issue should be decided by the inhabitants of the region and that "these fateful decisions must have an absolutely clear legal background, legal justification, be absolutely legitimate, as was the case with Crimea".
In June 2022, Stremousov, in a video message on the Telegram channel, said that the Kherson region began to prepare for a referendum on joining Russia. The referendum was going to be prepared by the pro-Putin United Russia party, but members fled the region towards the end of July after Ukrainian forces shelled the Antonivka Road Bridge. Authorities in the occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast region have not ruled out the possibility of a joint referendum.
On 5 September, Stremousov announced that the referendum in Kherson Oblast had been postponed due to "security reasons."
On 7 September, Andrey Turchak, secretary-general of the United Russia party, stated that it "would be right and symbolic" to hold the referendums in Russian-occupied Ukraine on 4 November, Russia's Unity Day; Stremousov stated that preparations would be made for this date, "even if we are ready for this referendum to take place right now".
On 20 September, Head of the Kherson Oblast Military–Civilian Administration Volodymyr Saldo announced that the referendum on the entry of the Kherson Oblast into Russia would be held from 23 to 27 September.
Question
The text printed on the ballots is bilingual, with Ukrainian alongside Russian:
Do you approve of having Kherson Oblast exit Ukraine, reforming Kherson Oblast into a self-governing state as well as incorporating it into the Russian Federation with subject rights of the Russian Federation?
Result
According to the figures released by the Kherson regional section of the Russian Central Election Commission, 87.05% (497,051) supported the annexation to the Russian Federation, with 12.05% (68,832) against and 0.9% of ballots invalid, on a turnout of 76.86%. TASS reported that 571,001 voters took part.