A collaborator from Zaporizhzhia Oblast preparing to hold referendum on joining Russia this year

IRYNA BALACHUK - WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE, 2022, 09:53

The so-called "representative of the local administration" of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, collaborator Volodymir Rogov, said that a so-called "referendum" on the oblast joining Russia will take place in 2022.

Source: Russian Kremlin-aligned publication RIA Novosti

Quote from the collaborator Rogov: "The referendum in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast on joining the Russian Federation will be held this year; preparations for it have begun and will last several months."

Details: The day before, Rogov claimed that allegedly "about 80% of the population" in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast are in favour of the region acceding to Russia.

Background: 

• On 7 June, Russian-occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, was visited by First Deputy Chief of Staff of Russia’s Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko, and the city's occupation authorities announced preparations for a "referendum."
• On 7 June, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the Russian invaders had opened a land connection between Russia and the occupied Crimea through the temporarily occupied southern oblasts of Ukraine.
• Shoigu also added that the Russian occupiers have restored the possibility of starting to run trains on six railway sections between "Russia, Donbass, Ukraine and Crimea" with a total length of 1,200 km. He also noted that the delivery of goods to Mariupol, Berdyansk and Kherson has begun.
• Later, the so-called head of the military-civil administration of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast, collaborator Yevhen Balitsky, said that the first freight train carrying grain stolen from Ukraine was sent to Crimea from the temporarily occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
• Earlier, Sergei Tsekov, the so-called senator of the Russian Federation Council from Crimea, said that o-called "referendums" on the accession of Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to Russia may take place within a year.