Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address to the nation, released on Wednesday (September 21) that Russia welcomes the referendums in Ukrainian territory controlled by Russia.
"Over the course of completing the main task of defending Donbas, our troops, based on the plans and decisions of the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff on the general strategy of action, have liberated from neo-Nazis significant areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and a number of others," Putin said.
"Ukraine has strengthened its repressive regime against its own citizens, which was established right after the armed takeover in 2014, in the harshest possible way all over its territory. The policy of intimidation, terror, violence is taking increasingly massive, horrific, barbaric forms. I want to point out - we know that the majority of the people living in the territories freed from the neo-Nazis - these are in the first place historical Novorossiya land - do not want to be under the heel of the neo-Nazi regime."
In an apparently coordinated move, pro-Russian figures on Tuesday (September 20) announced referendums for Sept. 23-27 in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces, representing around 15% of Ukrainian territory, or an area about the size of Hungary.
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