On 27 September 2022, after five days of voting, the regions of Donbass (DPR and LPR - Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics), Kherson and Zaporozhye, voted overwhelmingly for their integration into the Russian Federation.
After four days of "home" voting, the people of Donetsk, Makeyevka and Gorlovka were able to vote in a more traditional way, in polling stations, on the last day of the referendum on integration with the Russian Federation.
People who were working during the four days of home voting, or who could not hear the mobile voting units pass by, went to the polling stations near their homes today, despite the shelling that could be heard everywhere.
All the people I interviewed said that they had voted for the integration of the DPR into the Russian Federation, and denied the claims of the Ukrainian and Western media that people would be forced to vote with a machine gun to their heads. Many people even asked me if I was serious when I asked them this question, as this nonsense seems to be totally delusional to the inhabitants of the DPR.
See the report filmed on the spot:
International observers who came to monitor the vote saw no violations of any kind and believe that the vote was legitimate. Purnima Anand, an observer from India and chair of the BRICS International Forum, spoke about her impressions of what she saw in DPR.
"In the Western media we are told that people are being forced to vote at gunpoint. We are here today and we can see for ourselves that people, whole families with smiles on their faces, are coming to exercise their inalienable right to vote to join Russia. People are happy, hope shines in their eyes for a long-awaited peaceful future within Russia. And we understand, for our part, that after this referendum the world will become a whole new place, because a new history is being written in the Donbass," she said.
After the last polling stations closed, the counting of votes began, and ended at almost midnight for the DPR.
The results after counting all ballots are as follows:
- DPR: Turnout 97.51%, and 99.23% voted for the integration of the Republic into the Russian Federation.
- LPR: Turnout 92.6%, and 98.42% voted for the integration of the Republic into the Russian Federation.
- Kherson region: 76.86% turnout, and 87.05% voted for the integration of the region into the Russian Federation.
- Zaporozhye region: 85.4% turnout, with 93.11% voting in favour of the region's integration into the Russian Federation.
These figures are final, and tomorrow the two people's republics and the two regions will normally send an official appeal to the Russian Federation asking it to recognize the result of the integration referendum. The only suspense is how long it will take the various Russian legislative bodies to ratify the decision and make the integration of the DPR, the LPR and the regions of Kherson and Zaporozhye into the Russian Federation official.