Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine will “defend” its citizens in the Russian-occupied zone as authorities there announce the result of a so-called referendum already condemned by the West.
“This farce in the occupied territories cannot even be called a parody of the referendum,” Zelensky said in a video posted on Telegram on Tuesday. “We will act to protect our people: in Hull Pine, Zaporozhye, Donbass, currently occupied areas of Kharkiv and Crimea.”
The Ukrainian president’s remarks came as officials in four Moscow-occupied regions of the country claimed victory in a referendum that Western leaders denounced as sham ballots.
Local pollsters in the southern Zaporozhye region said 93.1 percent of voters had chosen Russia’s annexation after all votes were counted, adding that this was a preliminary result.
In Kherson, also in the southeast, authorities said 87 percent of voters chose to annex Russia after the votes were counted.
In the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists, 98.4 percent of people chose to be annexed by Russia, the Russian news agency said, citing local authorities. Leonid Pasechnik, the self-proclaimed leader of the Luhansk People’s Republic, said on Telegram that it was “clear” that Luhansk would return to Russia.
In the neighbouring Donetsk region, pollsters said that after counting all votes, 99.2 percent of voters chose Russian annexation, the news agency reported.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the West would never recognize Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory, which he described as part of Moscow’s “diabolical plan.”
NATO denounced the referendum as a “scam” and a “violation of international law”.
The United Nations said it was committed to maintaining Ukraine’s territorial integrity within recognized borders.
Earlier, Zelensky warned in a speech to the UN Security Council that Ukraine would not be able to negotiate with Russia after the vote.
“Russia’s recognition of the pseudo-referendum as ‘normal’, the implementation of the so-called Crimea program, and another attempt to annex Ukrainian territory means there is nothing to talk about,” he said in a video message.
“Before the eyes of the world, Russia is conducting an outright farce called a ‘referendum’ in the occupied territories of Ukraine,” he said.
“People were forced to fill out some papers for TV pictures at the muzzle of machine guns. The numbers of the so-called pseudo-referendum results were drawn in advance.”
President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to address both chambers of Russia’s parliament on Friday and may use the speech to formally declare the Ukrainian territory holding a referendum to join Russia, the British Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update.
Putin said on Tuesday that Russia wanted to “save the people” in the territories.
Working with AFP