DISINFO: Residents of new Russian territories announced their desire to join Russia in fair and legal referendums
SUMMARY
Russia will return to imposing the visions it presented in the security guarantees document dating back to December 2021, with amendments being made based on the new variables on the ground, in terms of the regions recently annexed to Russia, whose residents announced their desire to join Russia through fair and transparent popular referendums and in accordance with the rules of international law.
RESPONSE
This is a long-debunked pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative on the invasion of Ukraine and the sham referendums on occupied Ukrainian territories.
The mentioned regions are (partially) occupied by Russian military forces. All attempts by Russia to legalise its "control" over any part of the territory of Ukraine is a violation of the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Russia illegally annexed Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in 2014. Russia staged a fake referendum in Crimea, held at gun-point on 16 March 2014, and held similar referenda in Donetsk and Luhansk several weeks later. By doing so, Russia violated international law, including the Budapest Memorandum which provided security assurances to Ukraine in exchange for its renouncement of nuclear arms, and multiple Ukrainian-Russian treaties and agreements.
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution entitled ‘Territorial integrity of Ukraine’ on 27 March 2014, stating that ‘the referendum held in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on 16 March 2014, having no validity, cannot form the basis for any alteration of the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea or of the city of Sevastopol’.
In September 2022, Russia staged illegal referenda in parts of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts, annexed them, and declared them part of Russia. The EU, the US and their allies and partners, as well as most UN members, have not recognised these illegal referenda.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson joined Russia as a result of a referendum, that Novorossiya and Donbas republics declared independence according to UN Charter, that presidential elections in new regions of Russia are held without violations, that new Russian regions Zaporizhzhia and Kherson elect deputies for the first time and that four Ukrainian regions voted to join Russia in public referendums.