Washington: Russia plans to hold several referendums in Ukraine

Senior US officials have announced that Moscow has begun concrete plans to hold referendums in several cities under its control in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to bring it closer to Russia, according to senior officials in Washington.

A senior official in the National Security Council said that Russia plans to hold such referendums in Kherson, Zaporizhia, the breakaway regions of Luhansk, Donetsk and parts of Kharkiv.

"The Russian leadership has instructed officials to start holding these referendums," he added.

"While Russia is preparing to hold the referendums, we have information that officials are examining candidates to take charge of those areas. And these moves could take place as soon as in the coming weeks," he said.

He stated that Washington assumes that Russia will manipulate the results of these referendums in order to falsely claim that the Ukrainian people want to join Russia.

He noted that it would be very important to expose and combat this misinformation if the Kremlin said that the Ukrainian people wanted to join Russia.

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