Explained: vote in four Ukrainian regions and Russia's strategy

Russia was poised Wednesday to formally annex parts of Ukraine where occupied areas held a Kremlin-orchestrated “referendum” — denounced by Kyiv and the West as illegal and rigged — on living under Moscow's rule.

Armed troops had gone door-to-door with election officials to collect ballots in five days of voting.

The results were widely ridiculed as implausible and characterised as a land grab by an increasingly cornered Russian leadership following embarrassing military losses in Ukraine.

Moscow-installed administrations in the four regions of southern and eastern Ukraine claimed Tuesday night that residents had voted to join Russia.

“Forcing people in these territories to fill out some papers at the barrel of a gun is yet another Russian crime in the course of its aggression against Ukraine,” Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said, adding that the balloting was “a propaganda show” and “null and worthless.” The ballot was “falsified” and the outcome “implausibly claimed” that residents had agreed to rule from Moscow, the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said.

Pro-Russia officials in Ukraine's Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions said Wednesday they would ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to incorporate their provinces into Russia.

It wasn't immediately clear how the administrative process would unfold.

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