Independence referendum: new regions of Russia demand secession

Online referendums on the self-governance of the Chuvash Republic, the Republic of Karelia, the Belgorod, Novgorod and Voronezh People's Republics will be held from June 15 to June 30.

This is reported by the Organizing Committee of the National Online Referendum on the Self-Governance of the Russian Federation’s Republics.

Regions’ initiative groups announced the start of new referendums for self-governance and independence at a press conference in Warsaw.

Results of previous online referendums that took place in Königsberg (Kaliningrad and Oblast), Ingria (Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast), Kuban, Ural and Siberia showed the desire of the Russian regions for their independence.

"The ideas that are now floating in most regions of Russia are to become independent from Moscow and end the last empire, which definitely has no place in the modern world," said People's Deputy of Ukraine Oleh Dunda, who moderated the press conference.

The participants of the event said that the important thing is that Russia is now as weak as ever before, and is very afraid of free citizens and online referendums. Moscow is no longer able to intimidate the regions and the collapse of the "Russian Empire" is irreversible.

At the press conference, it was made a decision on further actions and desires of the regions to be recognized by the international community. Therefore, plans were discussed, and further actions of the initiative groups were determined:

• preparation of appeals to international institutions (the UN, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament) on recognition of newly independent states;
• forming a group for developing primary government documents;
• development of digital citizenship and its implementation in the legal field through Case Law;
• preparation of a project of the exploitation of natural resources and investment attraction.

Representatives of Königsberg, Ingria, Kuban, Ural and Siberia decided to conduct an online research on the leaders who can lead the new independent republics.

According to the data obtained during the research, 72.1% of respondees voted for Königsberg's separation and 27.9% voted against. 66.2% voted for the independence of Ingria, 33.8% – against. 55.7% voted for the independence of Kuban, 44.3% voted against it. 63.9% voted for the independence of Siberia, 36.1% – against. 68.2% support the independence of Ural, while 31.8% do not support this idea. A total of 5 million 634 respondees took part in the online referendum.

At the same time, there were attempts by Roskomnadzor to block the site where the voting took place.