Today was the last day of the five days of voting in referendums in the Donbas republics, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions on joining Russia. Within a few hours, preliminary results were already being reported, with support for joining Russia at 97-98% with 21-22% of the votes counted.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, in an interview with Russia’s Channel 1 TV broadcast yesterday, charged that the US doesn’t allow for alternative views of the situations in those regions. “They [the US] continue to dictate to all people who live in these territories, to those who make decisions directly based on their own understanding, where to live, how to live, what to do, how to arrange their normal existence, guaranteed safe, prosperous life,” he said. “They dictate the opposite, they pull these people back, they replicate the threats.”
