There the government does not send armed soldiers to collect votes in a see-through ballot box.
Nobody sent armed soldiers to collect the votes. Those sodiers were there to protect the voters from Z thugs.
Before you say something even more stupid, only one side was interested in disrupting the process, and one side wanted the process to deliver the votes.
Which side do you think was which? Duh!
Aside from the fact that Russia had no legal authority to hold them on foreign territory?
Russia did not "hold" anything "on a foreign territory". The referenda were conducted by the citizens of the territories. The answer was YES, the applications were submitted, and Russia said welcome aboard. Simple. Exactly how Article 1 of the UN Charter expects.
If you don't like it, you can write to your legal, democratically elected representative.