Ukraine says residents coerced into Russian vote

• Russia launched referendums on Friday aimed at annexing four occupied regions of Ukraine, raising the stakes of the seven-monthold war in what Kyiv called a sham that saw residents threatened with punishment if they did not vote.

Ukrainian officials said people were banned from leaving some occupied areas until the four-day vote was over, armed groups were going to homes to force people to cast ballots, and employees were threatened with losing their job if they did not participate.

“Today, the best thing for the people of Kherson would be not to open their doors,” said Yuriy Sobolevsky, the displaced first deputy council chairman of Kherson region.

The votes on becoming part of Russia were hastily-organized after Ukraine earlier this month recaptured large swaths of the northeast in a counteroffensive.

With Russian President Vladimir Putin also announcing a military draft this week to enlist 300,000 troops to fight in Ukraine, the Kremlin appears to be trying to regain the upper hand in the grinding conflict since its Feb. 24 invasion.

By incorporating the four areas, Moscow could portray attacks to retake them as an attack on Russia itself — potentially using that to justify even a nuclear response.

Putin and other Russian officials have mentioned nuclear weapons as an option in extremis: a terrifying prospect in a war that has already killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted millions and pummeled the global economy.

Voting in the provinces of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the east and southeast, representing about 15 per cent of Ukrainian territory, was due to run from Friday to Tuesday.

Polling stations were also set up in Moscow, for residents of those regions now living in Russia.

Serhiy Gaidai, Ukraine's Luhansk governor, said that in the town of Starobilsk, the population was banned from leaving and people were being forced out of homes to vote.

Reuters could not immediately verify reports of coercion.

Ukraine, Western leaders and the United Nations condemned the votes as an illegitimate precursor to illegal annexation. There are no independent observers, and much of the prewar population has fled.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The votes on becoming part of Russia were hastily-organized after Ukraine earlier this month recaptured large swaths of the northeast.