The leader of the occupying power installed by the Russian invaders in the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine said that he had signed a decree on organizing a referendum on joining the territory to Russia, Reuters reports.

Shortly after signing the document, he made a statement in front of a room full of Russian supporters, a video of the moment surfaced on social media after it was first published on his Telegram channel by RIA Novosti, one of Russia’s news agencies. Russian state.

Kevin Rothrock of the independent investigative website Meduza notes that the crowd unanimously applauded the announcement, a sign of how the referendum vote will go.

“I am signing the order of the Central Committee on the start of preparations for the organization of a referendum on the accession of the Zaporizhia region to the Russian Federation,” he said at the “We are with Russia” forum organized by the occupiers. .

The Russian state agency TASS, for its part, notes that “the forum participants greeted the decision to hold a referendum with applause,” and “the Russian national anthem was played at the end of the event.”

How does the occupying power want to hold referendums on joining Russia

The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in an assessment on Monday morning that Russian occupation officials may be speeding up preparations for illegitimate pseudo-referendums on Moscow’s annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories.

According to ISW, the Russian occupation authorities also intend to eliminate the possibility of in-person voting at polling stations by switching to “door-to-door voting”. This move is apparently intended to allow direct intimidation of Ukrainian civilians and vote fraud. get the result the Kremlin wants.

Eliminating in-person polling stations would also eliminate many of the problems faced by the separatist bureaucrats who must staff these stations. It was difficult for Russian troops to recruit people for these positions from the occupied population.

The first reports that Russia was preparing to annex all occupied Ukrainian territories, not just those with a significant Russian minority, appeared in early June, when an investigation by Meduza journalists revealed that Moscow officials had already begun recruiting “officers” and bureaucrats, necessary for the approach.

Dmytro Rogozin can be appointed the governor of the occupied Ukrainian territories

Later, “Meduza” journalists also wrote, citing several sources close to the administration of President Vladimir Putin, that former Russian Vice-Prime Minister Dmytro Rogozin may be appointed head of the new federal district, which will include all the occupied territories of Ukraine. of the Russian Defense Army and director of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

On July 15, Vladimir Putin replaced Rogozin as head of Roscosmos, but Meduza’s sources say that this is not because he has lost the confidence of the Russian president, but on the contrary, he would like to appoint him to a position closer to Kremlin.

In June, Dmytro Rogozin directly called for the genocide of Ukrainians, saying that it must be done “for the sake of our grandchildren.”

“If we don’t finish them off [pe ucraineni] now, unfortunately, our grandparents are not finished with them, we will have to die, but at an even greater cost to our grandchildren. So let’s get this over with. Once for all. For our grandchildren,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.

Russia is preparing to nationalize Ukrainian houses

At the end of July, the Moscow government prepared a draft law that allows local authorities to actually nationalize housing in the occupied territories.

Carefully developed by the Ministry of Construction of Russia under the guise of the need to provide housing for the poor, the project will empower local authorities in Russia’s federal districts to “take control” of “unclaimed” housing.

The decision on expropriation will be made by a high-ranking civil servant, who can recognize the housing of Ukrainians who fled from the occupied territories as “unclaimed” and hand them over to citizens of Russia.

The bill officially states that priority housing will be given to war veterans, family members of deceased veterans, disabled people and their families, victims of accidents and natural disasters, and other socially vulnerable categories of the population.

A report published last week by the Center for European Policy Analysis said that the Kremlin likely hopes that the annexation of Ukrainian territories will lead to a new revival of patriotic feelings, as happened after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, as more and more military analysts Russian worried about the prolongation of the war in Ukraine.

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