Armed Russian soldiers conduct door-to-door searches in Zaporizhzhia to find voters for sham referendum

ROMAN PETRENKO - SATURDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2022, 13:22 A video shared on social media shows armed Russian soldiers going door-to-door in search of people to take part in the sham referendum in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Source: Dmytro Orlov, Mayor of Enerhodar, on Telegram; Astra, an independent Russian media project

Quote from Orlov: "The video shows three collaborators accompanied by two armed soldiers delivering 'Russian world' straight to people's homes. [Russkiy mir, literally "Russian world" or "Russian order," is the concept of total domination of Russian culture over other cultures; it gives rise to and "legitimises" Russia's current expansionist, colonial politics - ed.]

The Ukrainian city of Enerhodar clearly refuses to welcome such 'guests'. The streets are empty. Apartment doors are locked.

Meanwhile, we have received information from those unfortunate enough to have had a personal encounter with the '[electoral] commission'. People tell of an armed Russian soldier pointing a gun at a piece of paper [the voting slip] and persuasively indicating which box to tick." Details: Russian journalists [from Astra] have spoken with the residents of Russia-occupied Vasylivka, who said that several local residents who attempted to protest against the referendum or "ticked the wrong box" had already been detained.

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Quote from a Vasylivka resident: "The only way to avoid taking part in all this is to refrain from opening your door. They've already come to my house, kept knocking on my door for a long while, and quite insistently, but I didn't open the door. I sit quietly in my apartment, pretending no one's home."

Background:

• The Kremlin-appointed authorities in occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson oblasts and the city of Melitopol (Zaporizhzhia Oblast) announced on 23 September that they had started referendums on merging the captured territories with Russia.
• The Office of the President of Ukraine assured Russia and its accomplices in the occupied territories of Ukraine that sham referendums will not let the occupiers legalise the seizure of Ukrainian lands.
• In Alchevsk, the Russian occupying authorities take into account even the "votes" of those who are either in captivity or have died, as Serhii Haidai, Head of the Oblast Military Administration, said.

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