Ukraine calls for tough sanctions against Russia for holding sham elections in occupied territories

Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Serhiy Kyslytsya, said this during a meeting of the UN Security Council, Ukrinform reports.

Kyslytsya called the pseudo-elections in the occupied territories Russia's desperate attempts to legitimize its illegal occupation of Ukrainian territories, which serves as proof that Moscow is aware of the inevitability of its defeat.

"It was hardly possible to qualify the fake "elections" to Russia's puppet structures in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia regions, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, which will take place on September 8-10, 2023, in any other way," Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations explained.

He emphasized that everyone involved in the pseudo-elections will be held accountable.

"The competent authorities of Ukraine are already taking measures to find them and bring them to justice," Kyslytsya said.

"Every day, if not every hour, Russia proves that its actions are completely incompatible with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, not to mention the Security Council," he emphasized.

Serhiy Kyslytsya called on the international community to respond to this deliberate violation of international law and the UN Charter by "increasing pressure on the aggressor, including the imposition of new tough sanctions."

In particular, the Permanent Representative thanked the member states of the UN Security Council for their position on Russia's intentions to hold pseudo-elections - Albania, the United States, France, Ecuador, Ghana, Malta, Switzerland, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Gabon and Japan (13 members of the Security Council out of 15, except Russia and China).

More details on the "elections" in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine

On September 30, 2022, Russian President Putin, relying on the results of the so-called referendum in the temporarily occupied territories, signed "agreements" on the "accession" of the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR, as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to Russia.

On October 2, 2022, he submitted a bill to the State Duma on the "'accession' of four regions of Ukraine to the Russian Federation."

Already on October 5 last year, Putin signed the "laws" on the so-called accession of four regions of Ukraine to Russia. He also appointed Denis Pushilin as "acting head of the DPR" and Leonid Pasichnyk as "acting head of the LPR." Volodymyr Saldo became the "governor" of Kherson region, and Yevhen Balytskyi was appointed the "governor" of Zaporizhzhia.

The "elections" in those territories were scheduled for September 10, 2023, but preparations for them began much earlier.

On September 4, the National Resistance Center stated that the enemy in the temporarily occupied territories could not find a sufficient number of "public observers" among the locals for the so-called elections, so they invited them from Russia.

Meanwhile, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said that among the candidates for representative pseudo-bodies in the temporarily occupied territories are Russian military personnel who participated in the invasion of Ukraine, where they killed and tortured people.

British intelligence predicted the results of the "elections": the United Russia party is likely to win the most votes.  

On September 7, Yuriy Sobolevsky, first deputy chairman of the Kherson regional council, noted that the occupation authorities have already managed to involve 15% of the local population in these "elections"

On September 8, Ukraine called on international partners to impose sanctions against the organizers of the pseudo-elections in the temporarily occupied territories.