A Nation with REAL Election Fraud
Another Commentary Coming from
An American in Ukraine
by Dr. E. C. Olson, Mission Director
A Nation with REAL Election Fraud
If you think the US has problems with election fraud and voter security, just look at what the residents of four Ukraine regions are facing: Armed Russian soldiers standing at the front door pointing a gun at you as you cast your vote, vote tallies done in secret by Russian military operatives, election results show more votes than voters in several regions, and in general, knowing that this election was a forgone conclusion and the result is that these four regions will soon be stripped from Ukraine and be annexed by Russia via “sham elections”.
Putin flips the scenario and uses a democratically run election against Ukraine and the West.
“See, these people want to be part of Russia”.
September 30th Update: Today Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of the four regions of Ukraine where illegal referendums were voted on this past week. In taking this predictable action, Putin has basically said to the Ukrainians and their supporters in the West, from this point forward, any attack on Russian forces or assets anywhere in these four regions will be treated by the Russians as direct attacks on Russia itself, therefore calling for the harshest response possible.
This has converted the war to a stand-down, posing the question of who will blink first? Will the Ukrainians stop attacks on Russian forces in these regions – that’s highly doubtful – which means that the ball will be back in Russia’s court: how will the Russian respond? This is also where Putin’s previous threats of Russia using a tactical nuclear strike comes into play, as that apparently is among his preferred options.
September 29th report – In literally a foregone conclusion, unsurprisingly Russia announced today (September 29th) that Vladimir Putin will hold a ceremony in Moscow tomorrow “formally” adding four Ukrainian provinces to the nation of Russia. Those four regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia (note: during our Mission 1.0 we were in the Kherson oblast/province) – recently held what was universally recognized as “sham elections” where the predominantly Russian-speaking citizens were encouraged and assisted to vote while Ukrainian-speaking residents were intimidated into not voting.
The result was predictable: the Kremlin is reporting that 72%-81% of the residents of these four provinces voted in favor of joining Russia. The footprint of these four regions amount to approximately 15% of Ukraine overall, and before the Russian invasion approximately four million people lived in these four regions. In all Putin proposes to raise the Russian flag over 38,600 square miles of Ukraine in what observers are reporting as his official way to elevate the stakes of this war by daring Ukraine and the West to attack what would then be Russian territory, making it the same as if Ukraine launched an attack inside of the current boundaries of Russia. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated last Saturday, “Once the Russian flag flies over these areas, they qualify for the same level of protection as any other part of the Russian Federation. What is particularly disturbed about that announcement is that Lavrov also went on to reiterate that Russia will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if the Ukrainians continue their offensive in any of these four regions.
Not-so-surprisingly, these elections targeted the four regions where Ukraine’s counter-offensive have allowed Ukraine to purge nearly all of the Russian occupiers, and Putin and the Kremlin recognized that if they didn’t act quickly these four provinces would be totally controlled by Ukraine and the Russians would have to mount another major invasion to reclaim them, something that nearly all observers feel is impossible due to the depleted status of the Russian Military’s equipment, troops and morale. And increasing the fighting like that – which would also result in a lot of new deaths of Russian soldiers (including those conscripted in this latest military draft) would cause Putin even greater problems at home as the Russian people are becoming increasingly intolerant of “Putin’s War”.
Clearly, Putin saw that a bloodless sham election was a much better way to lay claim to these territories, however feeble that hold may be. What’s also clearer is that no one – no nation outside of Russia and perhaps a couple of their few allies will recognize these elections or the consequential subsequent addition of these provinces to Russia.
It’s likely that whatever public relations or military values that Putin gains as a result of this hollow effort will be short-lived, as there is still so many other very problematic factors opposing Russia’s overall plan: the looming persistent threat of a nuclear attack (or a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant), the very unpopular Russian military draft, Russia now being accused of intentionally sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the increasing rejection of Russian-anything by the West – and then of course, the most consequential factor working against Russia, the actual fighting itself.
Even with some new drafted soldiers entering the combat zone, Russia has yet to successfully defend any previously-held city or territory during this entire Ukrainian counter-offensive.
But without question, Putin’s use of this sham election to lay claim to four Ukrainian provinces, and then to issue the threat of treating any Ukrainian attack on Russian forces anywhere in these provinces as an attack on Russia itself – has resulted in a very high escalation of the war. Clearly the stakes are now much higher for both Ukraine and Russia – and by extention the US and the rest of the world.