DISINFO: Russia has a right to five regions of Ukraine
SUMMARY
The central issue of the Ukrainian conflict is the status of the new Russian territories. Never before has anyone in Washington so realistically outlined what has long been a given for millions and millions of our people.
The biggest problem in this conflict is the so-called four regions - Donbass, Crimea, you know the names, Lugansk and two others. These are Russian-speaking regions, referendums were held there, in which the overwhelming majority of people expressed a desire to be under Russian control. And the question is whether the world will recognize that these are Russian territories. By the way, not a word about concessions from Russia, which in itself further captures the proportions of reality, the stage of acceptance of which, however, Zelensky, judging by the latest comment from Kyiv, has still not reached.
RESPONSE
Disinformation, repeating Kremlin's false claim about so-called "referendums" that allegedly showed the desire of the local residents of Ukrainian regions to join Russia. These so-called "referendums" were held at gun-point, under Russian military occupation without independent observers. The large part of the population that fled the Russia's invasion of Ukraine could not participate in them. Pro-Ukrainian residents of the occupied regions who refused to take Russia's citizenship, have been prosecuted and deported. These "referendums" amount to a mere Potemkin-facade to trick the international community. Repeating this lie plays into the Kremlin script.
The claim aims to portray the illegal annexation of Ukrainian regions by the Russian Federation as the expression of the free will of the population. In fact, those referendums don’t meet any international standard to be considered legitimate. Multiple testimonies show that many voters were coerced to take part in the false consultation, and eyewitnesses and footage in places like Enerhodar and Kherson proved that officials escorted by soldiers went door to door picking up votes. Pictures published by international outlets and agencies show that Russian soldiers were present everywhere.
Finally, the regional center of Zaporizhzhia and the adjacent districts were never under Russian control at all and, of course, there was no "referendum" there, but Russia declared these territories its own.
Not a single state in the world has stated its support or recognised the result of the "referendums" of 2022, amid Russia's agression of Ukraine, despite Russia’s claims at the UN that the presence of over 100 observers from multiple countries recognised the outcomes as legitimate. These observers are not “independent” but sent by Moscow in a concerted effort to give cover to its pretensions of legitimacy. See more details on the election and referenda's false observation.
Putin made a call to Crimean Tatars' public leader Mustafa Dzhemilev several days before the Crimea "referendum" of 2014, advocating the necessity to joining Russia and warning of possible clashes between Crimean tatars and Russian army. Russian President Vladimir Putin used to say that there were no Russian troops in Crimea and that those armed people were members of a local militia. Then he recognized that they were servicemen of the Russian regular army who helped stage what he called a democratic referendum.
Crimean residents who did not and do not comply with Russian occupying authorities frequently faced repressive acts, including intimidation, invasive house searches, arbitrary arrest, detention, torture or ill-treatment, enforced disappearance, judicial harassment, instilling generalised fear and stifling expression of any opposition, UN experts wrote in their report "Ten years of occupation by the Russian Federation: human rights in the autonomous republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine".
See more disinformation cases on referenda.