First partial vote from Ukraine shows overwhelming support for Russia

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First partial vote from Ukraine shows overwhelming support for Russia

LONDON - First partial voting results from four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine showed overwhelming support for becoming part of Russia, Russian state news agency RIA said on Tuesday after so-called referendums that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham.

Over five days of hastily arranged votes took place in the four areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which make up about 15 per cent of Ukrainian territory.

Russian-installed officials took ballot boxes from house to house in what Ukraine and the West said was an illegitimate, coercive exercise to create a legal pretext for Russia to annex the four regions.

President Vladimir Putin could then portray any Ukrainian attempt to recapture them as an attack on Russia itself. He said last week he was willing to use nuclear weapons to defend the territorial integrity of Russia.

Ukraine has warned that Russian annexation of additional territories would destroy any chance of peace talks, seven months after Moscow launched its invasion of the country.