The Guardian Weekly

Food for data How Russia prepared the ground for its sham referendums

LUKE HARDING IS A GUARDIAN AND OBSERVER INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT

Balakliia’s only functioning shop was packed. Residents who had spent six months under Russian occupation queued to buy bread, salami and frozen mackerel. “When the Russians arrived, I lost 10 kilograms. My wife lost eight kilograms. There was almost nothing to eat for the first two months,” one customer, Valery, recalled. Showing off his reduced waistline, he joked grimly: “That’s the upside of Moscow rule.”

Russian troops came to Balakliia in March. They raised a Russian tricolour above the modern brick town administration building, and parked their tanks in a factory. Three weeks ago the Ukrainian army chased them out in a dramatic counter-offensive. Kyiv reclaimed almost all of the Kharkiv region.

The Kremlin had been planning to hold a sham referendum in north-eastern Ukraine. As it was, the “vote” was conducted last weekend in the areas Russia still occupies. They include

most of the southern Kherson region, a mere third of Zaporizhzhia oblast, and large chunks of Luhansk and Donetsk, two eastern provinces partly run by Russia and its proxies since 2014.

Over the summer, Russia’s presidential administration paused preparations to carry out pseudovotes on Ukrainian territory. This was because of a lack of support. They were hastily revived last week after the Russian army’s stunning military setbacks. Vladimir Putin has responded by announcing a partial mass mobilisation at home, designed to recruit up to a million men for his floundering campaign.

Putin was expected to announce the “results” this week. It would be a major surprise if they showed anything but an overwhelming mandate for these new territories to join with Moscow.

The Ukrainians have reacted calmly. Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s senior adviser Mykhailo Podolyak described the election as a “propaganda show”, aimed at Russian TV viewers. It aimed to boost support for “Z-mobilisation”, he said, at a time when thousands of men of military age have been scrambling to exit the country.

With little in the shops, and no way of withdrawing cash, the town’s 15,000-strong population was forced to rely on Russian handouts. Humanitarian aid was available. But there was a catch: to receive it, locals had to give their address, and to hand over their passports and Ukrainian identification number.

“They photocopied everything. It was a ploy to get hold of your personal data,” Valery explained. “In return you got a packet of spaghetti and some tinned beef.”

Russia’s FSB spy agency was thus able to put together a highly accurate list of citizens in occupied communities – which could then be used for election manipulation, and other purposes.

Around the corner from Balakliia’s pink-painted shop was a large crater left by a Grad missile. It landed in May next to a five-storey building on Sobornaya Street, previously named after Lenin. Alexander Bayev, a pensioner who lives in the block, said the explosion killed his 65-year-old neighbour Vasily, who had been sitting outside on a wooden bench.

“He staggered to the entrance but didn’t make it,” Bayev said, pointing to blood on the steps. The blast blew out nearby apartment windows, shredded balconies and flipped a car into a children’s play area. Only 15 residents were left, he said, out of 250-odd from before the war.

Local support for annexation was extremely limited, residents said. “When our boys came we celebrated with champagne. I had hidden a bottle for that moment,” Natalia Sergeyevna said.

Video of last weekend’s sham referendum showed Russian soldiers in balaclavas escorting “election” workers carrying ballot boxes.

‘They photocopied everything … In return you got a packet of spaghetti’

According to Telegram posts from Russian-controlled towns, officials went from house to house, coercing some people into voting. They targeted the elderly who have received Russian pensions, as well as anyone who signed up for humanitarian goods. Serhii Haidai, head of the Luhansk region’s military administration, said the poll was a farce. There was no confidentiality, with paperwork filled out in the open in homes and yards, he said. If residents refused to open their door, “commissioners” threatened to break in. The names of those who vote “no” are recorded in a notebook, he said.

Balakliia has no electricity or gas. Andriy, a Ukrainian soldier, went to the railway station to recharge his phone from a public generator, available for four hours a day. He said he would carry on fighting, regardless of the “result”. “We will gradually kick the Russians out. I’m certain of it,” he said.

Ukrainian citizens who do vote for annexation – for whatever reason – can expect a reckoning. One Balakliia pensioner, Lionia, said he was a diabetic. When his insulin ran out, he asked the Russians for help. “When I collected the medicine they took my photo and put it in their swine paper. Then they left. My neighbours came round and beat me and my wife up,” he said, adding: “What choice did I have?”

Last weekend Ukrainian soldiers were making further gains. They were close to the city of Liman in Donetsk oblast, and were advancing towards the southern regional capital of Kherson. They believe in victory. “Yes, Russia is a colossus. But look at its feet. They are made of clay,” Valery said. Observer

The Big Story War In Ukraine

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