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International observers from Western states have confirmed that the referendums in Donbass and in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions met the democratic standards, Russian state media say. In reality, the Western states did not send observers to the so-called referendums, and the “experts” cited by the Russian media are born in the West, but have lived in Russia for many years and support the Kremlin's policies.
NEWS: “International observers have stated that they did not observe any violations during the referendums […].
The French independent political analyst Moro Xavier Bernard, who monitored how refugees voted on Russian territory, and also in the Donetsk People's Republic, said that Kyiv continued to bomb Donetsk on the day of the vote. Therefore, people were afraid to participate. “I saw how the refugees voted. Everything reminded me of France, everything was fine”.
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The Italian diplomat Vito Grittani, founder of the International Diplomatic Observatory, registered with the socio-economic department of the UN NGO, also said that the referendum was held in accordance with international standards.
“At the referendum, the general rules were respected, there were no cases of refusal to issue ballots in any of the polling stations, there were no cases of issuing ballots without presenting an identity document or a document replacing it, there were no problems with access to the polling place. No cases of multiple voting were recorded, there was no pressure on the referendum participants and no cases of citizen not knowing the voting procedure”, the diplomat said.
NARRATIVE: Western observers confirm that the referendums in Donbass, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia met the democratic standards.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In reality, the pseudo-referendums held in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson were not attended by observers from Western states. Both the EU member states and the US made it clear that they would never recognize the referendums, both before and during them, and after Moscow’s announcing the results.
According to the Ukrainian government, only of a few states – most of them authoritarian and/or partners of Moscow – sent observers to the fake referendums held in the east and south of Ukraine: Belarus, Syria, Egypt, Brazil, Venezuela, Uruguay, Togo and South Africa . Therefore, Italy, France, Germany and other western countries did not send any observers and do not recognize the legitimacy of those fake referendums.
The news published by RIA NOVOSTI is based on a series of false information. Moro Xavier Bernard is not an independent French expert, but a businessman, originally from France, who has been living in Russia for more than 20 years . He has written philosophy books in which he praises Vladimir Putin, speaks the Russian language, collaborates with Russian state institutions. In other words, he is not an international observer and does not represent France, he is a Russian resident with French origins.
Vito Grittani is presented as an Italian diplomat, but he has been living in Russia for several years, has citizenship of the separatist region of Abkhazia and is its “plenipotentiary ambassador”. In 2019, in an article dedicated to Grittani's visit to another Moscow-backed separatist republic, Transnistria, Russian media wrote about his visit as ambassador plenipotentiary of Abkhazia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs , according to the ministry’s website.
The Abkhasi media presents Grittani as a local diplomat defending the interests of the separatist republic .
So, the people who praised the “democratic way” in which the fake referendums were run in eastern and southern Ukraine are not international observers, do not represent Western states, have been living on the territory of Russia for many years, and have constantly supported the separatist projects of the Kremlin in the post-Soviet space.
Veridica has debunked a string of false narratives aimed at legitimizing Russia’s actions on the territory of Ukraine. The Russian press also wrote that the referendums on the annexation to Russia of the territories in eastern and southern Ukraine observe the UN Charter while the inhabitants of the Zaporizhzhia region are waiting for the liberation of the cities of Mykloiav, Kharkiv and Odesa from the Ukrainian Nazis. Russian propaganda has claimed that the UN and Turkey recognize Russia’ right to control Ukraine’s maritime ports , and the south of Ukraine, liberated from nationalists, wants to be annexed to Russia.
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