“This ad is illegal”declared on Tuesday August 9 on franceinfo Anastasiya Shapochkina, lecturer in geopolitics at Sciences Po, specialist in Europe-Russia relations, while the authorities appointed by Moscow in Zaporijia, partly occupied, announced officially to start preparations for the organization of a referendum on its attachment to Russia.
Zaporizhia is located in southern Ukraine and has Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which has been in Russian hands since late March. Since Friday, the two belligerents accuse each other of bombing the plant.
franceinfo: What do you think of this referendum?
Anastasiya Shapochkina: This announcement is illegal, it does not fall within the law of Russia whose Constitution provides for the rules of the referendum. Zaporizhia where the preparations for the referendum have started is not part of the territory of Russia, it is part of Ukraine.
Is the situation comparable with that of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014?
The organization of this pseudo-referendum to justify the annexation of the neighboring territory is the same scenario for Zaporijia as for Crimea. In Crimea, there were already 20,000 people from the Russian army there in 2014 and other tens of thousands of people arrived very quickly. So there was no resistance from the Ukrainian army. The organization of the referendum was done under military conditions.
Who votes? Are the people loyal to Moscow?
It’s not easy to know who votes. In several interviews, we see that the local population does not want to participate at all. It is possible that Russia will bring a favorable population to Zaporizhia to vote in this referendum. This method is widely used in the territories occupied by Russia since 2014 in eastern Ukraine, particularly in the Donetsk region. Today, we are facing an invasion of a sovereign country, which continues with the kidnapping and disappearance of local leaders, the forced re-education of teachers, school principals and if they do not want collaborate, they can be removed or can disappear.