7 Million People, 30% of GDP Say Goodbye to Ukraine: Donetsk and Lugansk Vote to Secede

7 Million People and 30% of GDP Say Goodbye to Ukraine! Below is live voting, eye-witness accounts and interviews I’ve translated into English, as well as the results of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics Referendums!

Donetsk and Lugansk regions (oblasts) of Ukraine, together forming the so-called Donbass, are the historically Russian areas, with a large cossack and miner population, which were attached to Ukraine without the consent of their population by the Soviet leaders. Both voted overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine, which always drained the region’s resources. The referendum was a success despite intimidation, kidnappings and killing of the local population by the Kiev junta. The region’s population is 7 million and it was responsible for 30% of Ukraine GDP.

Video below – Live! Referendum re. status of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Donetsk (eastern Ukraine). (Референдум о статусе Донецкой народной республики (Трансляция из Донецка).

On May 11, 2014 Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic (both in Dondass) have voted to secede from Ukraine. The referendum is taking place despite Kiev junta’s military operation, bloodshed and attacks by the Ukraine nazis against the peaceful people of Donbass.

During his visit to Switzerland, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked the people of Donbass to postpone referendum so negotiations to withdraw Ukraine troops from the South-East could take place. However, the locals voted unanimously to go ahead with the referendum despite Putin’s request, and despite the campaign of intimidation and military intervention by Kiev.

I want to address an issue that seems to have generated a certain confusion. Some people are asking why Putin asked to postpone the referendum, going as far as suggesting that Putin has blinked.

The thing is… Putin never blinks. He usually runs circles around Obama and co., and they don’t even know he IS doing it. So, blinked – no. A master chess game – yes. Remember how quickly and smoothly the Crimea thing happened? No one expected that. As of now, the US, EU and Kiev simply have to accept it.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll repeat again: “The West won’t be able to drag Russia into an armed conflict in Ukraine. Russia will use all peaceful and QUIET means at her disposal to slowly re-mold the situation in her favor.”

More detailed analysis and predictions (and this is just the beginning) in my article: Ukraine Part 6. Striking Geopolitical Similarities: Georgian War – Beijing2008 and Ukraine – Sochi2014, as well as other articles about Russia and Ukraine! (Click to read them)

Watch live voting:

Voting in Lugansk People’s Republic. In the interview, the woman says that they’ve been waiting for this for a long time. This is only the beginning, she says. Soon all of south-east will unite and will be together with Russia. And Kiev? We don’t want to be with Kiev. If they don’t respect the people, it’s not possible to live with them.

Huge crowds in Mariupol (Donetsk Republic) elbowing their way to polls in order to cast their vote in the independence referendum. Mariupol is the town just two days ago brutally attacked by the Kiev junta. The Kiev troops shot and killed peaceful citizens, including the elderly, children, as well as their pets and animals. Funerals are still ongoing. It appears Mariupol citizens are anxious to vote with their feet.

NEW! Just added:

Meanwhile in the town of Krasnoarmeisk, Ukraine troops seized 4 local schools, which were supposed to serve as polling stations. When people came, they could not vote. See confused and angry crowd in the school yard. The military yell “disperse.” Then people start chanting “east, east.”

More Mariupol. Voice of the people, Ilichevsky polling station: Look at this kilometer-long line!

A woman from the crowd asks the correspondent, “Where are you from?” He says: “Anna-news.” “Do you report the truth?” “Of course the truth, how can it be anything but the truth. We are broadcasting live!” The man takes an interview with a former local sports celebrity basketball player standing in line, who asks not to show his face on camera, so not to be exposed later to an attack by the kiev nazis. The man answers, “No problem, I know how this works.” The athlete says he came to vote of his own will, no one forced him to be there. This is the vote for our freedom, for out future. How do you feel after the May 9th, 2014 attack by Kiev on Mariupol? I feel angry of course, and we all are still mourning our victims. But this attack also consolidated us all and we are even more determined to vote today.

More never-ending queues to vote in the referendum! Watch here.

More long queues to vote for secession in eastern Ukraine – live by RT

Report from Moscow: Huge line stretched to vote for the Lugansk and Donetsk referendums in Moscow. Why? There are at least 5-6mln Ukrainian citizens presently living in Russia as guest workers. People in the crowd are showing their Ukrainian passports to cameras and holding signs with names of towns where they are from. Russian flags, and flags of Donetsk and Lugansk Republics are being brought in as people cheer. Signs on ballot boxes read “Donetsk” and “Lugansk.”

In the small city of Krasnoarmeysk, at least two people died, and at least several were wounded. People came to vote and discovered that all four polling stations in the city were taken over by the Kiev junta. Per reports, people with guns belonged to the private mercenary army of oligarch Kolomoysky, one of the main financiers and beneficiaries of the Kiev coup, who was installed as ruler of Dnepropetrovsk, and some of them were possibly national guard, formed of western Ukraine nazis and those few in Ukraine army who sold-out to the regime for a generous fee. Unarmed people, some drunk because they were celebrating referendum, yelled at the heavily armed soldiers, after which these soldiers opened fire. Video.

Graphic video: Ukraine’s National Guard opens fire on unarmed civilians in Krasnoarmeysk

The reason Kolomoysky sent his mercenaries to the inconsequential city of Krasnoarmeysk is because it is located on the best highway in Donbass, a very easy ride from Dnepropetrovsk. This road connects Dnepropetrovsk with Donetsk, the capital of Donbass. It appears, the mercenaries were planning on continuing to Donetsk in order to disrupt referendum there, but what happened in Krasnoarmeysk stopped or slowed them down. Besides, Donetsk is very well guarded by locals. It’s much easier to attack a small city with virtually no protection.

In this regard, it’s worth recalling that on May 9th, the Victory Day, which is a sacred holiday in both Russia and Ukraine, Kiev junta attacked another small city of Mariupol thus taking away the holiday from the people. As I said before, they killed some peaceful citizens, and even their pets, literally executing them from their tanks. The Kiev junta tanks rolled to the local police headquarters. They asked the police who they were with. The police answered that they were with the people. At that point the Kiev forces started firing from tanks and rocket launchers at the police building. As a result, 20 policemen, and those who tried to help them, were killed and dozens wounded.

Translation: Interview with the head of the polling commission in a small village in Donbass: the man says that 90% of citizens came to vote. 89% of them voted for the Donetsk Republic. Only 9 people voted against. He and others drove the ballots, which they had to hide as well as they could inside the car, in case they were ambushed on the way to the city. Once they reached the city, they were given guards who made sure ballots were protected until they reached the referendum headquarters. Listen to interview in Russian here.

Translation: Interview with Vera Petrichenko, deputy of the city council of Slavyansk. Slavyansk is the city that was attacked multiple times by Kiev due to its very vulnerable location. Vera says that it was all very orderly. The result will be clearly very good. It is already evening and results are being counted. People for the most part had the opportunity to vote, although not always. Turnout is unknown, but estimated at 70% or more. Locals guarded entrances into the city and no armed people from Kiev showed up. It was harder in villages. Many villages are cut off from Slavyansk by the junta.

However, locals know round-about ways and ballots were sneaked in and out to villages. Everyone understands how important it is to protect the ballots against nazis and junta, who may try to attack drivers and members of local voting commissions. Drivers oftentimes arrive with ballots all drenched in sweat due to how dangerous it is. However, no incidents have been reported so far. Some of the polling stations had to close early due to threats, to save the ballots that already were submitted. One of the villages was under attack and people literally had to escape from there to save the results of voting. We were coming in to pick up ballots and we were told that tanks were coming. So, we sneaked out via local roads only we know.

Everyone was celebrating, despite the fact that the day was developing in a very “interesting” fashion. Kiev cut off land-line and cell phone connections and we had to send couriers to deliver all messages. Also all over Donbass, Kiev cancelled public transportation, so everywhere people had to get to polling stations on foot. However, taxis and those who owned cars gave a lift for free to the elderly and other citizens. People carpooled.

Vera’s comment about attack on Krasnoarmeysk: it is a mining town and they wanted to intimidate miners. After that they were planning to go to Donetsk. Junta doesn’t want any friendship or unity between different parts of Ukraine. They want bloodshed and mayhem in the country. That’s why they have been telling lies about us and that’s why they have executed the Odessa massacre. Recently, Kiev sent a spy to us, and when he saw what really went on, he defected to the side of the people.

Vera continues: We don’t care if Obama, US or EU do not recognize the results of our referendum. We did this referendum for us, not for them, and we are fully capable of building the new society that we dream about, the one for the people. We are sick and tired of being treated as 3rd class citizens and as terrorists. We’ll stand up to ourselves, even our women are ready to fight. We don’t have any financing, unlike the Kiev maidan, which was generously financed by US and EU. We pull our own resources and share food and shelter.

Host: looks like you have really offended the poor Yatsenyuk, Tymoshenko and Turchinov (the Kiev junta). The West won’t give them any more money after Donbass secedes. 3bln of worthless US dollars may be all they will ever get considering the country is disintegrating in front of their eyes.  Watch interview:

Must see video! Completely barricaded building of the Central Polling Commission in Slavyansk, the city which was constantly attacked by Kiev junta with many dead and wounded. Sacks with sand stacked as high as the second floor. Ballot boxes with results being carried through a narrow opening. The representative of the voting commission says that turnout was about 80%. This was a real celebration, she says, people were hugging and congratulating each other, saying that they have not experienced such joy since childhood!

Results from Lugansk! turnout: 75%, for independence: 96.2% of voters! Against – less than 4%.  I can tell ya, all those killings of peaceful civilians and tanks on streets can be very convincing.

Report from Donetsk: turnout: 74%, for independence: 89.7% of voters. Against: 10.19%. Watch live press conference in Russian (around 6:00). Head of the Election Committee further says that now it’s up to the people what to do with the results of the referendum. We, he says, as specialists simply gave people the tools. You saw that those who manned polling stations were our volunteers, whom we are very proud of. Now it is up to all the people what the next step should be.

Interim Head of the Donetsk Republic answers questions (around 8:00): The next step for us is to duly organize and fortify our army. As you all know, the Kiev junta has invaded us and started a war against us on our territory. We are a sovereign state now, as voted by the people. All illegal military on our territory has either to declare allegiance to the Donetsk Republic, or leave. We are currently developing several potential models of our future development. We will be deciding soon which county we will align ourselves with. However, as far as Kiev is concerned, after they had killed so many of our people and after the Odessa massacre, the only thing we can negotiate about with the Kiev junta is how to exchange prisoners, and only via intermediaries. The intermediary we will accept is Russian Federation. We cannot trust Kiev. They had repeatedly broken their word. They had forsaken the Geneva agreements, they promised no military action during our sacred holidays, yet timed their last attacks to kill our people specifically on Easter Day and Victory Day.

Kiev announced they would stop paying pensions and salaries to us. Of course we are preparing counter-measures, but we will discuss that during future press-conferences. Today we have a wonderful holiday and I want to talk about that. We didn’t have international observers because time was short. However, we had over 600 accredited international journalists, plus many volunteer journalists from various countries. All of them were observers, and much of what was happening at the polls was broadcast live. People gladly shared who they voted for; you could see kilometer-long queues to polling stations. People were celebrating and that says it all. This a unique precedent – this is a 100% people’s referendum.

Head of the Election Committee: I believe that joining Russia as the subject of  the Russian Federation would be the right step (12:00 and later). Currently on our territory there are many very aggressive nazi militants armed by Kiev. They had been told to come to our land and kill us. Meanwhile, there are over 600 accredited intl journalists in Donbass. We gave you all full access to all polling stations, no restrictions whatsoever. You can go anywhere, interview anyone. You all feel safe here because we are for peace. Our referendum was in fact a vote for peace, and against war. We know that after the referendum our life can only get better because it cannot be worse than being a part of Ukraine.

Referendum is a farce: reaction from the West (US – Kerry, UK – Foreign Office, Germany – Merkel, France – Holande, EU – Ashland). Can the West be any more predictable? “Those who organized referendum have no DEMOCRATIC legitimacy?!” And maidan nazi thugs, who killed people and overthrew democratically elected president, DID?! Also, both US and EU threaten more sanctions against Russia IF May 25 elections are disrupted!! Which would of course be ALL Russia’s fault. Meanwhile US/EU, their Kiev stooges, western Ukraine nazis, as well as the US Greystone and (the entity formerly known as) Blackwater mercenaries killing unarmed civilians, are simply innocent bystanders and victims!

Watch:

 

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Lada Ray byline: Born in Russia, Lada Ray is a linguist, financial consultant, Feng Shui Master and mystical futurist. She is the author of three novels and several novelettes, most notably, Amazon bestselling thriller Gold Train (Accidental Spy Russia Adventure) about the conspiracy connected to the disappearance of the Russian Empire’s gold reserve; and the top-rated prophetic mystical thriller The Earth Shifter, set in Moscow, Lake Baikal in Siberia, NYC, and hidden realms of Heaven and Earth. Lada’s popular blogs: Lada Ray Blog (books, Russia, China, feng shui, world cultures) and her new project FuturisTrendcast (geopolitics, Earth Shift, Lada Ray’s mystical futurism and predictions). Subscribe to Lada Ray channel on Youtube and follow her on Twitter.

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