I never understood pushing for referendums in provinces where you have not established full-spectrum control (i.e. Donestk and Zaporizhzhia provinces). Doesn't sound representative if only half the population on these two provinces get to vote?
Russia should have established full military control over these two provinces before starting a referendum, just like they did in Crimea in 2014 referendum.
I’m sure that was the original plan. But they have failed on the battlefield so now needs to hold the vote with what territory they hold to allow them to deploy conscripts there.
I think the plan would have been to use professional soldiers and local militia to take those territories; then use referendum to annex them; then deploy conscripts to garrison them and free up the professional and militia soldiers to advance further west.
I think a key indicator of how well or badly Russia is doing in Ukraine would be to see what they use all their freshly mobilised conscripts for.
If they use them for garrison duty and defensive operations to help firm up their lines, then I would say the Russians are doing ok. Their plans are a little behind schedule, but overall on track to achieve their major strategic objectives in Ukraine.
If they use conscripts as support or even main force for offensive operations, then they are not doing so great and are at risk of failing in their strategic objectives since sending in the conscripts for such operations would likely result in significantly higher Russian military casualties and would not be something to do if they had better options. That’s basically throwing the proverbial kitchen sink in, and is dangerously close to needing direct military intervention from a certain friendly foreign power territory.
