Russians allowing people to ‘vote’ without IDs at sham referendums in occupied Berdyansk
The so-called members of the "election commission" during the pseudo-referendum in Mariupol (Photo:REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko)
Invading Russian forces are allowing residents in the occupied town of Berdyansk in Zaporizhzhya Oblast to “vote” in a sham referendum without showing identity documents or being listed on voter rolls.
RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service reported the lack of voting security on Sept. 25, with reference to the deputy chairman of the Berdyansk district council, Viktor Dudukalov.
“They (Russians) are walking around Berdyansk and Berdyansk district on a so-called yard or apartment-by-apartment patrol,” he said.
“One to three so-called members of their election commissions are visiting people accompanied by one or two Russian armed soldiers. They come to people’s homes and just ask them to vote.”
According to Dudukalov, the Russians are not even bothered by the fact that people do not have ID documents.
“People say: ‘We don’t have documents.’ Or they don’t want to show them. There are such cases. And they (Russians) don’t care at all, they say, just vote and that’s it,” he said.
Dudukalov also noted the Ukrainian security forces are waiting for more accurate information about the persons who helped the Russians organize the sham referendum.
Russia started holding sham referendums in the occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson oblasts on Sept. 23 to create an allegedly legal pretext for their annexation. The fake voting is supposed to last until Sept. 28.
Ukraine and the vast majority of Western countries have declared they will never recognize the results of these sham referendums, which are conducted illegally, with falsifications and under armed pressure on the local population.
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