‘Referendums’ start in Ukraine’s occupied territories

“Referendums” on joining Russia as separate constituent members have started in the so-called Donetsk and the Luhansk People’s Republics as well as in the Kherson Region and in occupied areas of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Region, Report informs referring to TASS.

Voting will continue until September 27, when counting of votes will begin. For security reasons, people in the four regions will be invited to vote near their homes, rather at polling stations, or rounds of citizens will be made, in the first four days of referendums.

On September 23, polling stations for refugees opened in a number of Russian cities.

The Kherson Region’s Central Election Commission expects some 750,000 people to take part in the plebiscite, with half a million people registered as voters in the Zaporizhzhia Region. Referendum ballots have been printed out for 1.5 million voters in the “DPR.”

For “DPR” residents, 450 polling stations are available in the republic and more than 200 in Russia. The so-called LPR’s Central Election Commission has opened 461 polling stations in the republic and 201 ones across Russia.

As for the Zaporizhzhia Region, 394 polling stations have been established in the region and another 102 in Russia, the separatist LPR, DPR and the Kherson Region. Citizens of the Kherson Region can cast their vote at any of the eight territorial or 198 local election commissions, or they could do so in the occupied Crimea, Moscow or other Russian cities.