Haidai believes "referendum" in Luhansk Oblast will lead to mobilisation in Russia
OLENA ROSHCHINA – MONDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER 2022, 23:06
If Russia organises and holds a "referendum" in the newly occupied territories of Luhansk Oblast, it will open the way to general mobilisation in Russia, according to Serhii Haidai, Head of the Luhansk Oblast Military Administration.
Source: Serhii Haidai, in comments for Radio Svoboda
Quote: "The occupiers can hold a fake ‘referendum’, hastily carry it out somehow, and recognise the ‘results’. The ‘results’ will indicate that all local residents want to ‘join’ the Russian Federation.
Even then, the liberation of temporarily occupied Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast will be regarded from the Russian point of view as a ‘direct attack on Russia’. This will provide an excuse to conduct general mobilisation and to declare war. Because Russia is having huge problems with mobilisation. They cannot recruit a normal number of people."
Background:
- On 19 September the Public Chamber of the "LPR" (self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic) demands the immediate launch of a referendum on its recognition as a federal subject of the Russian Federation.
- The Office of the President of Ukraine assured Russia and its allies in the occupied territories of Ukraine that sham referendums would not provide an opportunity to legalise the occupation of Ukrainian land.
- Earlier in the day [19 September], the head of the Oblast Military Administration said that only a few villages in Luhansk Oblast had been liberated so far, but he assumed that the situation would change soon. He did not rule out that in "a couple of weeks" administrative order would be restored and certain institutions would begin in liberated Luhansk Oblast.
- Currently, Luhansk Oblast is almost completely under Russian occupation.
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