On those "free and fair elections" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_annexation_referendums_in_Russian-occupied_Ukraine):

"In late September 2022, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian-installed officials in Ukraine staged so-called referendums on the annexation of occupied territories of Ukraine by Russia.[1][2][3][4] They were widely described as sham referendums by commentators and denounced by various countries. The validity of the results of the referendums has been accepted by North Korea, and no other sovereign state.

The votes were conducted in four areas of Ukraine – the Russian puppet states of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic in the Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, and the Russian-appointed military administrations of Kherson Oblast and Zaporizhzhia Oblast, captured and occupied in the first week of the 2022 invasion[5][6] – as well as in Russia.[1] At the time of the referendums, Russia did not fully control any of the four regions, where military hostilities were ongoing at the time. Much of the population had fled since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[7] The referendums were illegal under international law and have been condemned by the United Nations as violations of the United Nations Charter.[8][9]

On 30 September 2022, Russia's president Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts of Ukraine in an address to both houses of the Russian parliament. The United Nations, Ukraine, and many other countries condemned the annexation.[10]"

On the pensions part (linked below):
"But while the U.S. has indeed sent Bradley vehicles, ammunition, weapons and other equipment to Ukraine during its war with Russia, the support doesn’t stop there.

“We’re not providing only military assistance,” Tom Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations with expertise on U.S. foreign policy and Ukraine, told The Associated Press. “We are obviously providing financial assistance — budgetary support — and there’s humanitarian assistance as well.”

Between January 2022 and January 2023, the U.S. committed more than $26 billion to Ukraine in financial assistance, according to data compiled by the Ukraine Support Tracker at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank. That’s about a third of the roughly $77 billion in total aid noted by Kiel, including humanitarian and military assistance, pledged by the U.S. government. The numbers represent money promised, not entirely distributed.

Another tally from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget places the total amount of aid approved by Congress in 2022 for supporting the Ukrainian government and allies at about $113 billion. That includes about $27 billion in economic support funds, $7.9 billion for international disaster assistance and $6.6 billion to support and relocate refugees.

Graham noted that the war has wrecked Ukraine’s economy and that U.S. assistance has helped keep the government functioning.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has in releases and a report to Congress outlined how budgetary support to the Ukrainian government has been used. Some of the funding has been spent, for example, on social assistance payments and salaries for health care workers, first responders and educators. It also helps cover pensions and support Ukrainians displaced by the war.

Still, the largest bucket of overall U.S. aid committed to Ukraine — more than $46 billion, according to Kiel’s tracker — is military support."