The Embassy of Ukraine in the Federal Republic of Nigeria expresses its resolute protest over the illegitimate and unlawful actions by Russia in connection with sham “elections” held on 11th of November 2018 in the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
Despite numerous appeals from the international community to the Russian Federation regarding the great danger of holding fake elections in the territory of Donbas occupied by Russia, unfortunately, Russia took full responsibility and confirmed its participation in the occupation and took direct part in organizing these fake elections.
We are absolutely sure that these elections will not be recognized by anyone. They do not meet the standards of Ukrainian legislation. They are carried out at the gunpoint of Russian machine guns in the occupied territory. They are categorically inappropriate. Security conditions were not created.
The Russian Federation does this in the traditional manner only to eliminate its previous puppets directly involved in murders, tortures and violations of law. Today, Russia makes this step only to elect the next puppets already appointed by them.
Ukraine will strongly oppose this. Ukraine will take all measures to return the occupied Donbas and Crimea.
We are grateful to our international partners for having reaffirmed their continued support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.
We call on the international community to respond by stepping up political and economic pressure on the Kremlin and imposing new sanctions on the occupying state and those individuals, who were directly involved in organizing these sham “elections”.