“Pseudo-referendums in the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions are aimed at declaring forced ‘mobilization’. After it is completed, Russia’s FSB plans to throw the ‘mobilized’ Ukrainians to the hottest spots of the front to storm the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine under the control of barrage detachments. In fact, this is an attempt to destroy Ukraine at the hands of Ukrainians themselves," the Chief Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine posted on Telegram, Ukrinform reports.
The Chief Directorate of Intelligence notes that personal data of residents of the temporarily occupied territories are collected allegedly for residents to receive "humanitarian aid" or social benefits. In reality, the data will be used at "referendums". On the day of the “vote”, FSB officers will fill out ballots using the information obtained without the consent and physical presence of the Ukrainians themselves.
According to the Ukrainian intelligence, this special operation pursues the following goals: eliminating members of the Ukrainian ethnic group; conducting propaganda activities to impose on the population of Russia and the world the myth that "the population of the regions liberated from the Nazis began to fight against nationalist battalions."
"It is another crime of the Putin regime against Ukraine and proof of the genocide against the Ukrainian nation," the Chief Directorate of Intelligence underscores.
On February 24, 2022, Russia expanded its military aggression against Ukraine, launched in 2014, and began mass bombing of peaceful Ukrainian cities, towns, and villages. The Russian military unleashed mass terror in the temporarily occupied territories. The Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Territorial Defense Forces are fiercely resisting the Russian invaders and inflicting heavy losses on them.
