Russian forces launched new strikes on Ukrainian cities on Saturday as Kremlin-organized elections were held in occupied territories to create a pretext for their annexation by Moscow, while hundreds were arrested in Russia protesting a military mobilization order aimed at strengthening the country's forces. The Ukrainian presidential office said the latest Russian bombing killed at least three people and injured 19. Oleksandr Starukh, the Ukrainian governor of Zaporizhzhia, one of the regions where Moscow-installed officials organized referendums on joining Russia, said a Russian missile hit a residential building in the city of Zaporizhzhia, killing one person and injuring seven others. Ukraine and its Western allies say the ongoing referendums in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions have no legal validity and claimed the voting was an illegal attempt by Moscow to seize Ukrainian territory stretching from the Russian border to the Crimean Peninsula.

Also, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said the voting "looked more like a poll under the barrels of guns," adding that Moscow-backed local authorities sent armed escorts to accompany election officials and cancel the names of individuals who voted against joining Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also urged Ukrainians in occupied areas to undermine the referendums and share information about the people conducting this "farce." He also called on Russian conscripts to sabotage and abandon the army if called up under the partial mobilization announced by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. On Saturday, Putin signed a hastily approved bill that toughens penalties on soldiers who disobey officers’ orders, desert, or surrender to the enemy.

To conduct the referendums that began on Friday, election officials accompanied by police officers brought ballot cards to homes and set up mobile polling stations, citing safety reasons. Voting is scheduled to end on Tuesday, with Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko saying: "Half of the population fled the Donetsk region due to Russian terrorism and continuous shelling, and they voted against Russia with their feet, and the other half was subjected to fraud and fear." In the Ukrainian capital, about 100 people from the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol, part of the Donetsk region, gathered to protest the referendum, covering themselves with Ukrainian flags and holding signs saying "Mariupol is Ukraine." Elina Sitkova, 21, a protester who left many relatives in Mariupol despite the city enduring months of bombardment, said the voting was "an illusion of choice when there is nothing," adding, "It’s like a joke because it was like in the Crimean Peninsula, meaning it’s fake and not real," referring to the 2014 referendum held in Crimea before Moscow annexed the peninsula in a move condemned by most of the world.