Residents in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic and Russian-controlled areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Regions vote in a referendum on joining those areas to Russia.

A woman walks past a banner about a referendum on the joining of Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine to Russia in the Russian-controlled city of Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia Region, Ukraine, September 26, 2022. The banner reads: “Russia is order.”

Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters