People cast ballots at polling stations during a referendum on the joining of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) to Russia
(Picture: REUTERS)Officials in four Russian occupied regions of Ukraine have reported huge majorities of votes in favour of joining Russia in what the West has labelled “sham” referendums.
Hastily arranged votes took place over five days in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson to the south.
Together that makes up about 15 per cent of Ukrainian territory.
Vote tallies from complete results on Tuesday in the four provinces ranged from 87 per cent to 99.2 per cent in favour of joining Russia, according to Russia-appointed officials.
The head of the upper house of the Russian parliament said the chamber might consider annexation on October 4.
"The results are clear. Welcome home, to Russia!," Dmitry Medvedev, a former president who serves as deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council and an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said on Telegram.
Within the occupied territories, Russian-installed officials took ballot boxes from house to house in what Ukraine and the West said was an illegitimate exercise.
"This farce in the occupied territories cannot even be called an imitation of a referendum," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in video address late on Tuesday.
Britain’s Deputy UN Ambassador James Kariuki said: “Any referenda held under these conditions, at the barrel of a gun, can never be remotely close to free or fair.”
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, told the meeting that the referendums were conducted transparently and in line with electoral norms.
The United States will introduce a resolution at the UN Security Council calling on member states not to recognise any change to Ukraine and obligating Russia to withdraw its troops, US envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.
"Russia’s sham referenda, if accepted, will open a pandora’s box that we cannot close," she said at a council meeting.
Russia can veto a resolution in the Security Council, but Ms Thomas-Greenfield said that would prompt the US to take the issue to the UN General Assembly.
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, told the meeting that the referendums were conducted transparently and in line with electoral norms.
"This process is going to continue if Kyiv does not recognise its mistakes and its strategic errors and doesn't start to be guided by the interests of its own people and not blindly carry out the will of those people who are playing them," he said.
If Russia annexes the four Ukrainian regions, Putin could portray any Ukrainian attempt to recapture them as an attack on Russia itself.
Putin said last week he was willing to use nuclear weapons to defend the "territorial integrity" of Russia.
