Oh and on the topic of self determination of the people of Donbas - look at this:

translated with Google lens:

The Oblast of Zaporizhzhia has roughly 1.6 million inhabitants. Now how come that there are less than 40k votes here? How is that possible if allegations are untrue that Russia, how shall I phrase it, “shaped” the participation to the referendum?
And why would you need to do that if you had a safe majority supporting your cause?