Previously, after all, the company of outcasts is more fun. It has happened that not only Belarus and Russia, but also Syria and North Korea voted against resolutions condemning the UN. Earlier, Cuba, China and Venezuela joined the cheerful company, Eritrea. and Somalia provided a strong shoulder, Uzbekistan and Bolivia reached out in gestures of support, even Kazakhstan used to look towards the light. Now only the very deficient have remained, even the Somalis have not raised their hands to vote against the non-recognition of Russian referendums in the occupied territories. Because this is already too much even for African dictatorships with their annual military coups or, on the contrary, part of a century of senile rule.
I have smart friends in Horlivka. They are from western Ukraine, from Chernivtsi. But a long time ago, the head of the circle of relatives was transferred from Chernivtsi to Horlivka for work. They settled there. He fell in love with Donbass, built a house, raised young people. In 2014, they drove the young people in the last exercise to the west and stayed where they were. They are not leaving: for 8 years they have believed that the Ukrainian army will soon liberate the Donbass. In addition, there are fewer and fewer people like them there: separatist propaganda works worse than Azaronak. And to the young people who left for this last exercise, when they arrive to stop at the house of their parents, former classmates and street teachers they say: “You are traitors, you have left your homeland, you live with ridges, are you ashamed to come to Horlivka now?”But there are also those who await liberation and return from their territories of origin to Ukraine. So they were treated very fairly in this “referendum”.
There were no polling stations in the “DPR”. That is, several booths for Russian TV channels were set up, temporarily filmed and taken away. And the “vote” was very simple. The groups moved from one space to another: a woman with a stack of ballot papers and two armed separatists accompanying her. The woman distributed a survey and the armed men conscientiously observed which column was marked by the user whose space they entered. They, the men, had their own stack of papers in a position: drafts of notices to the army “DPR”, in which only the names had to be written. I think you can guess how accurately the population of the occupied territories “voted”. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even have to fake anything: at gunpoint you put a doodle where they say. Those who were lucky enough to be absent can simply not worry: their names are still safe on the lists of those who voted to register in Russia. And on October 5, the border and customs between Russia and the “DPR” were abolished. The trail is open. Carry the weapons as much as you want. The gray area extended from the occupied territories to Kamchatka.
In fact, it all started with the fact that the border between Belarus and Russia was abolished. Lukashenka and Chernomyrdin dug the border posts, and it turns out that externally nothing has changed, it is even easier. And we haven’t seen how they have the same “DPR,” the same gray area, conducive to smuggling anything from vodka to weapons, and customs scams. We watch with horror what is happening in the occupied territories of Ukraine, not knowing that we are hunting in the mirror.
And the referendums in ORDLO are Lukashenko’s sweetest dream. If we don’t replace anything in the near future, our next election will be exactly the same. Yarmoshyna, Kachanava and Massandra will move from space to space. They will be escorted via GUBOPiK in full attire. Those who do not open will have their doors broken. Those who refuse to participate or who want to vote, say, not for Lukashenka, but for Tsiartsel (I will never know who else might be his technical rival), will be immediately taken to prison. No, it is older this. form: with Yarmoshyna and Kachanava, there will be judges on the electoral team with prepared sentence texts, where you only have to enter the surname. Victory is guaranteed, and there will not be 80%, but every 100, and without any fake, filler and karens crawling through the windows of the school.
I’m not kidding now, me. I have no doubt that Lukashenka knows perfectly well how the “referendums” took a position in those occupied territories, and she moistens her lips with pleasure, imagining the same thing in Belarus in a few years’ time. He understands that for Putin we are the same “DPR”, and he will probably laugh, imagining how the Kremlin has already come up with the so-called “RPR” for Belarus by analogy. In fact, it’s almost fun. But this situation, perhaps repositioned a bit to take into account national specificities, can be implemented without problems here if we do not reposition anything.
That is why I think it is no longer imaginable to postpone it. It’s time. I don’t want to wait for the mobilization.
Iryna Khalip, for Charter97. org