If last week the secretary general of United Russia, Andrei Turchak, proposed holding a popular consultation to absorb the regions of southeastern Ukraine, such as Kherson and Zaporizhia. This Monday has been the Public Chamber of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR)in eastern Ukraine, which has asked the leader of the republic, Leonid Pásechnik, to organize an “urgent” referendum on joining Russia.
Lugansk has been joined by Donetsk. Both republics have decided to speed up the organization of the referendums on joining Russia after the Ukrainian counter-offensive forced the Russian army to cede territory.
“I have a proposition, join forces between the heads of the republics and parliaments to work out the steps, the actions, that will allow us to start the preparations for the referendum,” Denis Pushilin, the Donetsk separatist leader, said on his Telegram channel.
Pushilin discussed with his Lugansk counterpart, Leonid Pasechnik, the need to “synchronize” both the organization of the consultations and the security measures to stop the advance of the Ukrainian forces.
Thus, called to hold the integration referendum with the Russian Federation on the same day in both territoriesjust as it happened when the pro-Russian military uprising broke out in 2014.
[Putin propone celebrar referéndums de anexión en los territorios ocupados el 4 de noviembre]
The public chambers, advisory bodies of both separatist republics, have addressed their leaders with the request that they hold said consultation “urgently”. “Today we receive requests from public cameras. This is nothing more than a reflection of the opinion of our people, something that has been in the air for a long time,” Pushilin explained, in statements collected by the agency. Eph.
The petition of the Donetsk Public Chamber calls to erase once and for all “the non-existent border” with Russia. “We want the border of the Russian Federation to be between us and Ukraine,” said Alexandr Kofman, speaker of the House.
Along the same lines, the Lugansk Public Chamber called “to immediately hold a referendum on the recognition of the Lugansk People’s Republic as a subject of the Russian Federation.” “We are convinced that the initiative will have the full support of the people of Luhansk and entry into the Russian Federation will not only constitute a triumph of historical justice, but will also guarantee the security of the republic,” the petition states.
The Ukrainian authorities in Lugansk say that their forces have taken the town of Bilohorivka, on the border between Lugansk and Donetsk. According to British intelligence, any substantial loss of territory in the Luhansk region, whose control Russia claimed in early July, would undermine the Kremlin’s strategy in Ukraine.
The Russian withdrawal from the Kharkov region on September 8 has been accompanied by the advance in Donbas of the Ukrainian troops, who have crossed the strategic Oskil River.
However, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin ruled out last Friday a change of strategy in eastern Ukraine after the Kremlin also rejected a possible general mobilization after criticism from some politicians and regional leaders about the dire lack of soldiers on the front lines.
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