The vote is going to be overwhelmingly supportive of joining Russia. The fear is that once they do join the Russian Federation officially in the eyes of Russian law, we've heard that publicly from some of the officials saying that the Russian Armed Forces will be reinforcing those areas. But most importantly, for the war, and specifically for Ukrainian goal and Zelensky's goal has for a long time been to bring the borders back to what they were before February 24th. And we have no choice but to defend ourselves.
The Russian president is calling on reservists and holding fake referenda to legitimize his war. Washington Post reporter Mary Ilyushina explains.
This episode was produced by Jillian Weinberger and Amanda Lewellyn, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
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