Russian soldiers, wearing balaclavas and brandishing rifles, flanked the election workers. Ukrainians were forced to vote while Russian officials or their proxies stood guard. Some residents even hid in their homes, terrified that voting against Russian annexation would result in their kidnapping, or worse.
On Friday, as Russia began orchestrating referendums in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, Ukrainians in those areas expressed a mixture of anger, defiance and fear that their homeland would be forcibly usurped in what they called it a mock vote.
The purpose of the hastily organized referendums – backed by pro-Russian residents and their proxies – was obvious: to give Russian President Vladimir V. Putin a false legal pretext to gobble up their country. And they brought back memories of votes held in Crimea in 2014 that were quickly followed by Russia’s annexation of the peninsula.
Tina, 27, a freelance journalist visiting her fiancé’s parents in Beryslav, in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, said she walked through the streets on Friday morning and saw Russian officials standing in a neighbour’s yard, waiting for him to fill out the ballot. before passing it on to someone in a nearby vehicle.
Russian officials were going door to door, she said, delivering ballots, peering out the windows of homes that did not answer their call.
“We are against these occupiers,” Tina said, “but we have no right to say no – we cannot refuse.”
Tina, who said she took part in protests against the Russian occupation, said her fiancé’s relatives locked their gates and doors and turned off their lights, as advised by Ukrainian authorities. But she feared that their address would be noted and that there would be negative repercussions if they refused to open the door.
“After living with them for more than six months now, we have learned that any refusal could lead to a direct ticket to the basement,” she said, using a phrase Ukrainians under occupation in Kherson, a city port of the country. south, began to be used to describe abductions by occupying forces.
Olha, a Ukrainian woman who spoke to friends on Thursday evening in Enerhodar, a Russian-held town in southeastern Ukraine near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, said men aged 18 to 35 years were prevented from leaving the city. Echoing the concerns of many Ukrainians, she said she fears Russian annexation will force young men to join the Russian army and fight against their fellow Ukrainians. This has happened before in parts of Luhansk and Donetsk occupied by Russia since 2014.
“They want to draft them into the Russian armed forces,” Olha said. “And the Ukrainians will have to fight against the Ukrainians,” she said, stopping as she burst into tears. Like others interviewed for this article, she did not want to use her full name out of concern for her safety.
Andriy, 44, who has friends and relatives in Kherson, said he spoke to them in recent days and they told him it was not possible to leave the city because of the referendum.
“You know, those who are smart, they stay at home and don’t go anywhere,” he said by phone from Kyiv.
In Russian-occupied Melitopol in southeastern Ukraine, Natalia, 73, a pensioner, said the referendums had shocked her.
“The scariest thing is that after the referendum, if Ukraine tries to liberate my city, it will be seen as an attack on Russia,” she said.
She said the Russians set up referendum information kiosks all over Melitopol and hung banners with pro-Russian slogans. The city, she said, was covered in Russian flags and Russian patriotic music was playing.
On Friday, she said, she looked out her apartment window and saw two pro-Russian referendum workers enter the building. She stayed inside, away from the window, so as not to be seen. But she managed to spot two soldiers, each wearing a balaclava and holding a gun, escorting three referendum workers. She said a polling station had been set up in a school gymnasium.
“I’m not going to vote,” Natalia said. “Only if they point a gun at me, and even then I will vote for Ukraine.”
Diana Poladova contributed reporting.