Ukraine's 'Fake' Referendum Results Lead To Russia's Annexation, US Plans UN Resolution

JAKARTA - Russian officials in four Ukrainian occupation areas reported the majority of the vote in favor of joining Russia, as the United States plans a UN resolution condemning the referendum as fake and Moscow remains against it.

Voting lasted five days in eastern Donetsk and Lugansk and in Zaporizhia and Kherson south, jointly forming about 15 percent of Ukraine.

The vote count from the full results on Tuesday in four provinces ranged from 87 percent to 99.2 percent in favor of joining Russia, according to Russian-appointed officials.

The chairman of the upper house of the Russian parliament said the assembly might consider annexation on October 4.

"The results are clear. Welcome home, to Russia!," Dmitry Medvedev, the former president who served as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council and ally of President Vladimir Putin, said on Telegram.

In the occupied area, Russian-placed officials circulated house-to-house ballot boxes, in what Ukraine and the West say are illegal coercion exercises to create legal pretexts for Russia to annex four regions.

"The jokes in this occupied area cannot even be called a clone of a referendum," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening video address on Tuesday.

Separately, the United States will introduce a resolution on the United Nations Security Council, calling on member states not to recognize any changes in Ukraine, requiring Russia to withdraw its troops, US envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

"Russia's false reference, if accepted, will open Pandora's box that we cannot close," he said at a board meeting.

Russia has the ability to veto resolutions on the Security Council, but Thomas-Greenfield says it will push Washington to bring the matter to the UN General Assembly.

"Any referendum held under these conditions, at the barrel of a weapon, will never be able to approach free or fair," said Deputy British Ambassador to the United Nations James Kariuki.

Meanwhile, the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, said at the meeting that referendum was carried out transparently and upholding election norms.

"This process will continue if Kyiv is not aware of his mistakes and strategic mistakes and does not begin to be guided by the interests of his own people and does not blindly implement the will of the people who play him," said Nebenzia.

It is known, none of the four regions fully under Moscow's control and there has been fighting along the front lines, with Ukrainian forces reporting more progress since they defeated Russian troops in the fifth province, Kharkiv, earlier this month.

President Zelensky said the Donetsk region in the east remains the country's top strategic priority, with the "very severe" fighting that hit several cities.