President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree enacting a decision by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to impose sanctions on individuals involved in holding illegal “elections” to the Russian State Duma in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory.
The sanctions package targets 44 individuals acting in Russia’s interests and facilitating the temporary occupation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as Crimea and Sevastopol.
Some of them have already been “elected” as so-called deputies of illegally established local councils in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory. The list also includes other criminals and accomplices of the aggressor state. They include propagandist and accomplice of the occupiers Irina Kuksenkova and former Ukrainian lawmaker Iurii Onishchuk, who began cooperating with the Russians after the occupation of Melitopol.
Ukraine stresses that these “elections” are illegitimate. The results of such voting, as well as any documents issued as part of these “elections,” have no legal basis whatsoever. They constitute a gross violation of international law and its fundamental principles.
“International humanitarian law, including the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Convention, requires an occupying power to respect the laws in force in the occupied territory. Occupation confers no sovereignty. The UN General Assembly has repeatedly affirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity, including in 2014 with regard to Crimea and in 2022, when 143 states condemned Russia’s attempted illegal annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions and declared it invalid. No ‘elections,’ ‘referendums,’ or ‘electoral districts’ can change this status,” said Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Advisor – Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Sanctions Policy.
The “elections” were accompanied by widespread fraud, forced voting, and pre-fabricated turnout figures. In this way, the Russian Federation is attempting to legitimize its war crimes and use the imitation of an electoral process as one of the tools for consolidating control over seized Ukrainian territories. The relevant information will be shared with partners to coordinate sanctions in their respective jurisdictions.
Ukraine and its partner countries have not recognized the “elections” held in the temporarily occupied territories of our country. Those that have condemned Russia’s actions include EU countries, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
“Our sanctions, followed by sanctions from our partners, are the appropriate legal response to all these ‘elections’ and to every individual who took part in them,” emphasized Advisor – Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Sanctions Policy, Vladyslav Vlasiuk.