Russian occupation officials may be speeding up preparations for illegitimate pseudo-referendums on Moscow’s annexation of occupied Ukrainian territory, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports in its latest assessment.

Ivan Fedorov, the Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia region, said on August 7 that resistance among Ukrainian residents forced the Russian authorities to “constantly” change their plans for the referendum.

Fedorov said that the occupation authorities planned only one day of voting, but seven days of “voting from home” are now being considered, during which armed Russian soldiers will go from house to house and “interview” the residents of Melitopol.

Fedorov claimed that only about 10 percent of civilians remaining in Melitopol supported the Russian occupation, and warned that Russian soldiers would threaten to shoot residents who did not vote for the annexation.

September 11 remains the date of the referendum in Kherson

An adviser to the Ukrainian administration in Kherson, Serhii Khlan, said that the occupation authorities have not yet fully created the conditions for holding a referendum, but are accelerating their efforts after a three-week pause in preparations, which Khlan attributes to Ukrainian HIMARS attacks on Russian occupation logistics.

The occupation authorities could also change the timing of their previous referendums in response to changing realities on the ground, including the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Khlan reported that September 11 remains the preliminary date of the referendum.

Voting at home, direct intimidation of the civilian population of Ukraine

By canceling the possibility of in-person voting and switching to door-to-door voting, the Russian occupation authorities are expanding their opportunities for direct intimidation of the civilian population of Ukraine.

These efforts are not necessary to rig the vote in the sense of the Kremlin’s desired outcome, but they make any independent oversight of the vote nearly impossible. Also, the occupying power can turn these “surveys” into intelligence operations to eliminate the Ukrainian opposition from the occupied territories.

Abolishing in-person polling stations eliminates many problems for the bureaucrats who must staff these polling stations. It was difficult for Russian troops to recruit people for these positions from the occupied population.

Voting at home also limits the possibility of partisan attacks on those seats. The Kremlin can order different types of voting in different occupied territories depending on perceived local support, the perceived risk of guerrilla attacks, and bureaucratic capacity.

Russian blackmail: Humanitarian aid only to those who vote

For example, on August 7, Serhiy Gaidai, the head of the UCU in the Luhansk region, said that the Russian occupation authorities in the region had determined the places for holding the so-called referendum on annexation.

Gaidai said that the Russian occupation authorities are actively campaigning for annexation, distributing propaganda newspapers and tying humanitarian aid, including food, water and construction materials, to participation in the pseudo-referendum.

Gaidai stated that this practice is blackmail: “we [rușii] we will help you [pe voi, civilii ucraineni] meet your basic needs while you go to the “referendum”. Otherwise, die, and we will falsify the result without you.”

Russia has occupied parts of Luhansk Oblast since 2014 and is likely to have more capacity to mobilize collaborators to manage polling stations than in recently occupied territories.

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