Mayor: Melitopol residents forced to vote in ‘referendum’ for absent relatives, neighbors

The exiled mayor of Melitopol, a Russian-occupied city in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ivan Fedorov said on Sept. 26 that Russian occupation authorities are going door-to-door to make locals vote instead of their family members and neighbors who evacuated due to the "catastrophically low turnout."

Russia's proxies in the occupied parts of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts are holding sham referendums on joining Russia on Sept. 23-27.