Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has enacted a decision by the National Security and Defence Council to impose sanctions on 44 individuals involved in organising Russia’s illegal “elections” to the State Duma on temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
This was reported by the Office of the President of Ukraine.
The sanctions list includes individuals who, according to the Ukrainian side, act in Russia’s interests and facilitate the occupation of parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as Crimea and Sevastopol.
Among them are people who were previously “elected” to local authorities illegally created by Russia in the occupied territories.
The list also includes propagandist Irina Kuksenkova and former Ukrainian MP Yurii Onyshchuk, who began cooperating with the Russian side after the occupation of Melitopol.
Ukraine stresses that these “elections” are illegitimate: the results of such voting and all documents issued in the course of these actions have no legal basis whatsoever. They grossly violate the norms and principles of international law.
“The norms of international humanitarian law, in particular the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Convention, oblige the occupying state to respect the existing legislation of the occupied territory. Occupation confers no sovereignty. The UN General Assembly has repeatedly affirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity, including in 2014 regarding Crimea and in 2022, when 143 states condemned the attempted illegal annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and declared it invalid. No ‘elections’, ‘referendums’ or ‘constituencies’ change this status,” said Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the President’s adviser and commissioner for sanctions policy.
The so-called “elections” to the State Duma were accompanied by widespread fraud, forced voting and pre-fabricated turnout figures.
In this way, Russia is trying to legitimise its war crimes and use the imitation of an electoral process as one of the tools for entrenching control over seized Ukrainian territories.
The relevant information will be passed to partners to synchronise sanctions in their jurisdictions.
Ukraine and partner countries did not recognise the “elections” in the temporarily occupied territories of our country. Those who condemned Russia’s actions include EU countries, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
At the same time, the sanctions decisions are part of Ukraine’s broader policy of holding to account individuals who assist the occupation administration and Russia’s attempts to entrench control over temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.