Verification within Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program
A video is being circulated online showing Melitopol residents chanting: “We are the authority here.” The post claims that Ukraine wanted to remain in power in the Zaporizhzhia region, but the locals decided to join russia.
However, this is false. After the start of the full-scale invasion, Melitopol residents took to rallies against the Russian occupation and stated that they wanted to remain with Ukraine. Later, Russia occupied the city and held illegal pseudo-referendums. 
Screenshot of the post
Propagandists took the slogan “We are the authority here” out of context and presented it as supposedly pro-Russian. But in fact, in the first weeks after the Russian invasion, mass pro-Ukrainian rallies took place in Melitopol and other occupied cities. In particular, thousands of Melitopol residents took to the streets to protest, chanting the slogan “We are the authority here.” In this way, they demonstrated that they opposed the Russian occupation and considered the true authority to be the residents of Melitopol.
Residents of the Zaporizhzhia region and other Ukrainian regions did not choose to join Russia. In September 2022, Russia held pseudo-referendums in order to legitimize the occupation of Ukrainian territories. However, they are illegal. Russia violated Article 2 of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force against the political independence and territorial integrity of another state. This norm is also enshrined in other international documents, such as the Helsinki Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Declaration on Principles of International Law.
According to international humanitarian law, the occupying authority must maintain the legal order established in the territory prior to its occupation and must not violate the rights of civilians. Holding so-called “referendums” to annex territory and forcing civilians to participate in these events are gross violations of international norms.
Moreover, Ukrainian legislation prohibits holding referendums in individual regions. Changes to the territory of Ukraine are possible only through a nationwide referendum, which is held at the request of no fewer than 3 million citizens with the right to vote. Another mandatory condition for a nationwide referendum is to collect signatures in at least two-thirds of the regions and at least 100,000 in each region.
In addition, the number of people who allegedly came to participate in the vote often did not match the actual number of residents in the occupied territories. Thus, on September 27, 2022, after the end of the pseudo-referendums, Russian media reported that more than 93% of residents in the Zaporizhzhia region had “voted.” In total, the Russians included more than 541,000 residents of the region on voter lists, of whom allegedly about 430,000 residents “voted in favor.”
However, this information was refuted by Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov. According to him, only 0.5% of the region’s residents voted in the pseudo-referendum. People were threatened with deportation and forced to have one person vote on behalf of several others at once. In Melitopol itself, according to Fedorov, as of April 1, 2022, about 70–75 thousand citizens remained — approximately half of the city’s population before the occupation.
The international community condemned the so-called “referendums” in the temporarily occupied territories. The United States emphasized that the “referendums” were a sham to justify the annexation of part of Ukrainian territory. The EU stated that the illegal votes cannot be considered a free expression of the will of the residents of these regions.
Earlier, we refuted the fake claim that residents of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions want to hold a referendum and join Russia.
