Ukraine war: 'Referndums' continue, sanctions, captured Sri Lankans
Moscow-installed officials in occupied east Ukraine are continuing with a referendum on whether to join Russia.
The voting process was described as "an opinion survey under the gun barrel" by a local Ukrainian official, adding that Moscow-backed local authorities sent armed escorts to accompany election officials and to take down the names of individuals who voted against joining Russia.
Election officials accompanied by police officers carried ballots to homes and set up mobile polling stations, citing safety reasons. The votes are set to wrap up Tuesday.
Ukraine and its Western allies say the referendums underway in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions have no legal force. They alleged the votes were an illegitimate attempt by Moscow to seize Ukrainian territory stretching from the Russian border to the Crimean Peninsula.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians in occupied regions to undermine the referendums and to share information about the people conducting “this farce.”
Joe Biden said the United States and its allies would impose "swift and severe" new economic sanctions on Russia if it annexes territory in Ukraine in "referendums" that continue Saturday.
"Russia's referendums are a sham, a false pretext for trying to annex parts of Ukraine by force," the US president said on Friday evening.
Earlier, in a joint statement, the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) had called on "all countries to unequivocally reject these sham referendums", "shams" that "have neither legal effect nor legitimacy".
On Friday evening, in his daily address to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also
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