Ukrainians in Kherson region protest against Russian aggression.
Russia is trying to push through an independence “vote” in the southern Ukrainian town of Kherson as it seeks to repeat its 2014 playbook of trying to carve out parts of the country, Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
Russia is desperately trying to hold a sham ‘referendum’ for a ‘people’s republic’ in Kherson. Support among people is zero, so this is complete fiction,” he said in a March 12 tweet.
Kherson, a port city near where the Dnieper River flows into the Black Sea, borders Crimea, the peninsula that Russia seized in 2014. Russian control of Kherson through a proxy “independent” nation would be a step towards the Kremlin creating a land bridge between Russia and Crimea.
Russian troops took control of Kherson earlier this month, but have not received support from local residents, who have continued to protest the occupation of their city.
Serhiy Hlan, a deputy of the Kherson regional council, said earlier in the day that Russian occupying forces had contacted him and other deputies asking them to “cooperate” with the creation of Kherson National Republic (KhNR), he said in a Facebook post.Hlan said that he “categorically refused” and called on other deputies to reject the Russian overtures.
“The creation of KhNR will turn our region into a hopeless pit without life or a future,” he said. A resident of Kherson speaking on condition of anonymity with RFE/RL amid concern over her safety, said Russia has brought in at least nine busloads of people from Russian-controlled territories in the east. She said the vote could be held on March 13 to coincide with the anniversary of Soviet forces driving the Nazi’s out of Kherson in 1944. Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to sell his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine to his nation as a forced step to rid the democratic country of its “fascist” leaders.
No one in Kherson wants it to be an independent republic. We are part of Ukraine, this [KhNR] is nonsense,” the resident told RFE/RL.Kherson citizens are sending around messages warning each other not to vote or fall victim to a Russian provocation, she said.
Russia helped separatists in eastern Ukraine set up the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic in 2014 after Kremlin-leaning President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown following months of large-scale street protests..Russia has supplied the leaders of the two self-proclaimed governments with money, weapons, and troops to keep them afloat.
Putin last month finally recognized their independence making Russia the only country in the world to do so.
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