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Notes -
It's pretty important to understand what was being voted for here. Just understanding the context of the original asked question offers clues:
This is connected to Gorby's drive to salvage the rapidly decaying Soviet Union by reforming it as a decentralized state. In other words, if you're voting "Yes", you're not voting for "old" Soviet Union, you're voting for a new decentralized state, where the autonomy of the individual republics would be greatly expanded.
However, as the site says, there was an [additional question in Ukraine](Do you agree that Ukraine should be part of a Union of Soviet Sovereign States on the basis on the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine?):
Note well: the Union of Soviet Sovereign States. This already presumes the existence of a whole new kind of an entity. Moreover, the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine stated:
What exactly was the difference between this and independence? Beats me! This referendum was accepted by 80% of the votes, and as others point out, after the Gorby's reform plans fell through, Ukrainian voters confirmed formal independence with 92 % of votes.
Presenting the 1991 Soviet referendums as some sort of a yes/no vote on independence with no votes winning is quite misleading. It was all part of an ongoing process leading to Ukrainian independence, and indeed can be considered more as further indication of the popularity of independence, rather than opposition to it. In any case it seems obvious that early-90s Ukrainian voters wanted more sovereignty from Moscow. That, quite clearly, has not been Moscow's intent.
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