A poster in the Luhansk region reads “Forever with Russia”.
(Photo: dpa)
Moscow, Kyiv Shortly after the first alleged results of mock referendums in four Russian-held areas of Ukraine were announced, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the “referendums” a farce. The sham referendums “cannot even be described as imitations of referendums,” said Selenski on Wednesday night.
Shortly before, the occupation administrations deployed by Moscow in the four Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Cherson and Zaporizhia said that the people there had allegedly voted in favor of joining Russia, some with 99 percent approval.
The mock referendums took place between last Friday and this Tuesday. However, they are not recognized internationally because they are held in violation of Ukrainian and international laws and without minimum democratic standards. Observers had pointed to numerous cases in which Ukrainian residents of the occupied territories were forced to vote.
It is now expected that the occupation administrations deployed by Moscow will officially apply to Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin for admission to Russian territory. Before the start of the sham referendums, Putin had emphasized that the areas would then be completely under Russia’s influence. Observers expect that the Kremlin would then interpret attacks by Ukraine on the occupied territories as attacks on Russian territory, in order to justify a possible further escalation of the situation.
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According to rumors, the Duma could already decide on corresponding draft laws on annexations on Thursday. According to Russian news agencies, President Putin is likely to speak publicly about the referendums on Friday, and it has been expected for days that he could use this opportunity to announce the annexations of the areas. UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently described such a move as a violation of international law.
>> Read here: By putting pressure on the population, Russia is pushing through the sham referendums in Ukraine
At a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday in New York, the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebensja, nevertheless said that Russia is assuming that there will be further referendums in Ukraine. “This process” will “continue if Kyiv does not recognize its mistakes and strategic lapses and is not guided by the interests of its own people” and instead blindly carries out the will of those who manipulate it, according to Nebensja.
France’s foreign minister announces further EU sanctions
In view of the development, the European Union (EU) is already preparing further sanctions. “If Russia holds these illegal referendums, European Union sanctions will follow, with my country’s full support,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said on Tuesday during a visit to Kyiv. “Like the previous ones, these sanctions will be taken within a European framework.”
After consulting with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, Colonna said they had already “started work among Europeans, consultations are underway to come to a new series of sanctions as soon as possible”. These should “on the one hand be individual” in order to meet those responsible and now affect “other sectors that have not yet been affected by sanctions and which will now be.”
>> Read here: As an election observer at mock referendums – energy boss released
On Tuesday, Great Britain announced further sanctions in response to the referendums, which are intended to hit officials involved in their implementation and other oligarchs. The United States had already threatened economic sanctions in the event of an annexation of the occupied territories in Ukraine.
According to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), the votes in the occupied territories make no difference for Germany. “We will not accept the results of these sham referendums and will continue to support Ukraine with undiminished strength,” he told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.
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