Information about the preparation of a referendum in the Lviv region is circulating on the Internet. According to them, it is supposed to resolve the issue of its entry into Poland. Numerous Telegram channels with the letters Z and V in their names distribute photos of prepared ballots with allegations that boxes with ballots were delivered to the Lviv regional administration.
Following the Telegram channels and social networks, the Kremlin media also joined the campaign, though not the most visible ones. The edition "Tsargrad" writes :
“In the Lviv region, they are preparing a referendum on joining Poland. The media reported another vote, about which no one is talking about yet. A photo of a box with ballot papers has appeared on the Web. Apparently, someone is preparing to hold a referendum on the withdrawal of the Lviv region from Ukraine and its accession to Poland.
“Are you in favor of secession of the Lviv region from Ukraine and joining the Republic of Poland?” the document says. And below are two possible answers: “yes” and “no”. At the same time, each ballot is stamped with the Polish coat of arms and the inscription “State Electoral Commission” in Polish.”
The Notepad edition adds :
“It’s not for nothing that the major Polish newspaper Dziennik wrote back in the summer that Volodymyr Zelensky “intends to return Ukraine to Poland.” In the material, the journalists discussed which regions of the Independent could join Poland.
Information about the preparation of the referendum also appeared in many regional online publications.
Meanwhile, the photo is a gross fake. Let's start with the fact that, according to the laws of Ukraine, the issues of changing the country's borders can only be decided at a national referendum. Participation of the regional administration in holding a local referendum, and even organized by a neighboring state, is absolutely impossible.
The design of the ballots is completely different from that adopted in Poland. For comparison, here is the ballot of the 2015 Polish referendum on changing the electoral system, party financing and tax law interpretation (declared invalid due to low voter turnout).
On the other hand, the "Lviv bulletin" suspiciously resembles the one that was used at the just-past "referendum" in the Donetsk region.
Surprisingly, the authors of the fake did not even think to write the text on the ballot in Polish, limiting themselves only to Ukrainian. And Polish fact-checkers from Fakenews.pl noticed that the printing on the ballots is different from the printing of the Polish State Electoral Commission. It is copied from the stamps on the envelopes used in the 2020 elections, which were held by mail due to the pandemic.
The seal with which the bundles of ballots are sealed has nothing to do with the original.
On September 17, former member of the Verkhovna Rada Ilya Kiva, who fled first to Spain and then to Russia after the outbreak of the war, wrote on his Telegram channel that Polish President Andrzej Duda announced his desire to receive reparations from Russia for losses during World War II Lviv region. What does the Lviv region have to do with Russia, Kiva did not explain. Duda, indeed, in an interview with Wprost spoke about the fundamental possibility of demanding reparations from Russia, but, of course, he did not mention the Lviv region.
As for the publication in Dziennik , which was mentioned by Notepad, this is a fake that has been exposed for a long time. As fact-checkers from the Central European Digital Media Observatory wrote back in July, the photo of the front page of a Polish newspaper with an article about Zelensky’s intention to give Ukraine to Poland is fake. In fact, that day on the front page there was a completely different article – about rewarding officials of the Lubelskie Voivodeship.