Foreign Ministry: Voting of residents of occupied Donbas, Crimea in Russian referendum is illegal

This is stated in a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, published on its website on Friday, June 19.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine accepts statements by the Russian occupation administration about its intentions to ensure the voting of residents of the occupied territories of Donbas with illegally issued passports of a citizen of the Russian Federation in the 2020 Russian constitutional referendum as another attempt to violate the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," the report reads.

The decision to mass issue Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens in the occupied territories of Donbas is a gross interference in internal affairs and a continuation of Russia’s attempts to creeping annexation of the Ukrainian Donbas.

In terms of Ukrainian and international law, voting in the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea will be illegal, like all previous so-called elections held by the occupation authorities on the peninsula, the ministry says.

Ukrainian diplomats believe that a common response to the illegal actions of the Russian Federation should be increased political, diplomatic and sanctions pressure on the aggressor state.

In addition, they drew attention to the fact that the participation in the Russian referendum of holders of illegally issued passports of a citizen of the Russian Federation in Crimea and Donbas distorts and casts doubt on the result of the all-Russian vote.

As previously reported, 20,000 Ukrainians suddenly got the right to vote in a constitutional referendum using illegal Russian passports.

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