Russo-Ukrainian War: Significant occurrences, day 213

• Russia has started holding referendums.
• The votes were denounced by Ukraine.
• A large portion of the pre-war population has left, and there are no impartial witnesses.

Diplomacy

Aiming to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine, Russia has started holding referendums. Kyiv and Western countries have denounced the referendums as “a fraud” and promised not to recognize the results.

According to Ukrainian officials, armed forces were entering homes to force people to cast ballots, people were forbidden from leaving some seized areas until the four-day election was over, and employees were threatened with termination if they did not take part.

Voting was hurriedly organized in the provinces of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia after Ukraine launched a counteroffensive to retake substantial portions of the northeast.

The votes were denounced by Ukraine, Western leaders, and the UN as an illegitimate prelude to unlawful annexation. A large portion of the pre-war population has left, and there are no impartial witnesses.

According to Russia, the referendums give residents of the area a chance to voice their opinions.

If Moscow proceeds with annexing areas of Ukrainian land, the United States and its allies are ready to impose greater economic consequences on Moscow, according to the White House.

In response to the “fake” referendums, NATO will step its support for Kyiv, according to the secretary-general of the alliance.

Shaquille O’Neal of the US basketball legends, Harry Styles, and Ed Sheeran, among other celebrities, will give personal items for a campaign to promote healthcare in Ukraine.

Abuses

After visiting 27 locations and speaking with more than 150 victims and witnesses, a UN-mandated inquiry committee claimed to have found evidence of war crimes, such as killings, rape, torture, and kidnapping of children, in the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine.

Russia contends that allegations of mistreatment are a smear campaign and denies purposefully harming civilians throughout the conflict. It did not respond right away to the report.

Fighting

Ukraine declared it will sever diplomatic ties with Iran because of its choice to provide drones to Russian military.

Short-range ballistic missiles or other similar weapons were used by Russia this week to attack the Pechenihy dam on the Siverskyi Donets river in northeastern Ukraine, according to the British military.

According to the UK defense ministry, Russian commanders may be seeking to open the dams’ sluice gates in order to flood Ukrainian military crossing points.

According to the city’s acting mayor, a Russian missile that struck a residential structure in Zaporizhzhia caused casualties.

Ukraine said that two drones near Odesa port killed a woman and demolished a structure. Air defenses destroyed an Iranian-made Shahed-136 drone over the

Black Sea that was built to crash into its targets.

After Russia’s President Vladimir Putin warned the West he was not bluffing when he said he would be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia, the

White House stated that the United States saw no reason to modify its nuclear posture.

In order to avoid the country’s largest conscription push since World War II, some Russians of draft-age travelled abroad.

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