New Wall of Putin's illusions. What reality the Kremlin creates for the Russians
Then, immediately after Putin's speech, this policy changed dramatically and it was said that "referendums" would be carried out-more or less instantly, immediately, in a war. People try to find a way to talk about this nonsense without using the word "referendum", which in this context is a propaganda that clearly misleads, if not to say more. Video of the day is best regarded what is happening as a media event.
Not only there are no legal grounds for talking about a "referendum", but there were actual reasons to speak even about a "fictitious referendum". Fictitious is something confused and poorly organized, but at least exists. What Russia does is nothing but media exters, designed to form people's opinions about Russia's territory occupied by Russia. First of all, in principle, it is illegal to conduct referendums during armed conflict and under threat of force.
And this is a sufficient reason to completely ignore these "media exters". But this is only the outer part of the problem. In the case of their referendum, they are indeed illegal. But we must be careful: even when we say an "illegal referendum", we do not quite get to the essence of things. We can convince ourselves that some vote has happened to some mistakes. But the election requires infrastructure. There is no this infrastructure.
Although we will undoubtedly see the photos of the elderly who hold a piece of paper in their hands, reporters are wrong to speak about "voting". Moreover, even if the Russians indeed had a voting infrastructure that they have no; And even if they intended to force people in the occupied territories to vote what they did not do; They could not carry them out because they do not actually control the totality of any region on which, as they claim, there is a vote.
There was no significant vote, and could not be. The real situation has nothing to do with Ukrainians or how they can vote. This is due to Putin's needs. Russia is losing war, and Putin needs a new wall of illusions. Like tyrants everywhere and at all times, he made a fatal mistake, and therefore his last action is to ensure that it becomes fatal for his own people.
Putin needs to be directed to Ukraine by Russian reserves, and he needs a story about why he is doing it - except that it is because his war was a mistake and Russia loses. History is that Russia's offensive war for the destruction of Ukraine is actually a defensive war to protect the Motherland. For this story, he also needs these "media exters". Putin knows that most Russians actually roll up for Ukraine, she is concerned about them in the sense that they enjoy the war on television.
But the war goes so bad that the television version is difficult to support. Putin needs some Russians to get out of the sofa and begin to fight, and he declared "partial mobilization". To convince Russian men to fight, and their families do not rebel, he changed his characteristic of war. It was once a special operation that was to destroy Ukraine in three days. Currently, a grand struggle against protection of civilization, etc. is underway. But the defensive war should be carried out in Russia.
Therefore, Putin should represent the Ukrainian territory that Ukrainians want to return as the territory of Russia, and therefore he needs "media exters" in order to pretend that "referendums" have taken place and that people in Ukrainian regions want to join Russia.
Presto-Cano-Russo-a magical Russian transformation-the desire of a tyrant, a few lines of script on Russian television, several coded lines on the websites of the Russian media-and the territories become Russian! This pathetic postmodern improvisation will not convince anyone but Russia, and may not even convince the Russians themselves. But now that Putin has made such a decision, it is necessary to continue working with the media to support his magic thoughts.
And the Russian media will simply announce that (approximately) 97%of residents of Donetsk region want to join Russia, in Lugansk - 96%, in Zaporizhzhia - 86%, in Kherson - 80%. These numbers will be fictional, taken from the air. They are already in a file. To give these figures in combination with the words "referendum" or "vote" - no more reason than believe in my statement made here, that 97% of Brooklyn residents wish to join Mississippi.
It is no point in saying that such numbers are unlikely because they are just fictional. When we already know that something fictional, we usually don't stop to go on and think about it. But yes, the fabrications presented in media exters will be unlikely. And this is deliberate. The principle of Russian election propaganda is to lie when everyone knows that it is a lie and then by force to show that there is no alternative to living as if this lie was true.
So, we get the North Korean numbers because this system works. Therefore, these media exters of the Russian media are absurd. But they are not funny. They are just obscene.
What about the dead? How about more than 100,000 Ukrainians killed by Russians in Mariupol? How should we treat their "votes"? What can be said about more than three million Ukrainian citizens forcibly deported to Russia, many of whom are now in the camps? In the regions where these media exters were conducted, Russia destroyed the city outside the city. Everywhere where Russia occupied the territory, it leaves the mass graves.
When I was in Ukraine a few weeks ago, I visited one of them, as well as the homes of people who lost my family members. While I was in Ukraine, the Ukrainian army liberated most of Kharkiv region, and now we know about other mass burials, such as in Izium. Such a world where media exters were held.
When Russia claims that the vast majority of Ukrainians want to join Russia, she claims that Ukrainians like fraternal graves, Ukrainians like torture, Ukrainians like deportation, Ukrainians like them when their homes are destroyed and their cities are erased from the ground. Media exters of Russian media continuing ("referendums") is simply obscene.