KHARKIV (VG) On the streets of the bombed Saltivka neighborhood in the second Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, questions about the weekend “referendum” in Donetsk and Luhansk are arousing anger.
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After seven months of continuous Russian bombing, life in the hard-hit district slowly began to return. But it will never be the same again.
Outside a collapsed apartment building, 24-year-old Serhiy arrives on a racing bike. Two large carrying bags hang on the handlebar.
– I fled here when the invasion started on February 24th. My apartment was in the middle of the firing line, I could see Russian tanks from my window, she says.
Today, Serhiy went back to his apartment to collect some things. It is the first time he has come here since he had to escape seven months ago.
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– I have such great hatred for Russia. It is difficult to describe. I’ll never forget what they did to us, she says.
– And now they will force the people of Donetsk and Luhansk into a so-called referendum? It’s just a theater, she explains.
Before the invasion he was neutral towards the Russians and Russia, but after what he himself experienced when the tanks entered the city and the bombings began, the hatred is so strong that he cannot put it into words.
– The referendum is completely unnatural and not at all credible. I don’t think it will make any difference, she says.
Take the result for granted
So today begins the “referendum” in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine. It could lead to an even more serious development in the deadly conflict.
If the two separatist republics, in addition to occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhya, which also hold a “referendum”, are incorporated into Russia, the Russian authorities will be able to claim that Ukraine is attacking Russia, instead of the other way around.
It could open the door for Putin to use completely different tools, after the decision on a partial mobilization e nuclear weapons threats.
In Russia the result is anticipated: “Today is a vote, tomorrow is recognition as part of Russia, the day after tomorrow: an attack on the territory of Russia, so that there is a full-scale war between Ukraine / NATO and Russia”, he written Putin’s head of propaganda Margherita Simonjan on Telegram September 19.
BACKGROUND: This is how Russia will justify escalating the war
– Nobody will vote voluntarily
In Kharkiv, the vast majority speak Russian. Trade with the eastern neighbor was important to the city’s industry and economy until the annexation of Crimea to Russia and the conflict in Donbas in 2014.
Then the relationship cooled, which affected the city to a large extent.
And those VGs who meet on the street and in the bombed apartments in Saltivka have little faith that a referendum in Donetsk and Luhansk will take place with the support of the people.
– I don’t think anyone will vote voluntarily. Real Ukrainians will not participate in such elections. Then they have to vote with a gun against the temple, says Lydia Pavlivna, 62.
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She is sitting outside the apartment building she has lived with three neighbors most of her life.
– The Russians are robbing us. It is our country. Why should we give up something that belongs to Ukraine? They can live in their own shit, not come here to our country, says Lydia.
From the first day of the Russian invasion, the huge Saltivka district was in the line of fire of Russian artillery and bombs. Today, after seven months of intense fighting, large areas have been devastated. Collapsed walls, burnt blocks, craters in the streets and artillery holes in the walls and roofs.