Kiev says all Ukrainians who organized referendums will receive “just punishment.”

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The Ukrainian government has advanced on Wednesday that “all Ukrainian citizens” who participated in the organization of the referendums on accession to Russia in the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporiyia will receive “just punishment” and stressed that the authorities are already “looking for them” to “bring them to justice”.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has indicated in a statement published on its website that the ballots are “a propaganda action” on the part of Russia and added that “forcing people in these territories to fill out papers under the surveillance of the Russian Army is another Russian crime in the framework of its aggression against Ukraine.”

Thus, he stressed that these actions “seriously violate the Constitution and laws of the country, the norms of international law and Russia’s international obligations”, before stressing that “this has nothing to do with the manifestation of a will and has no consequences for the administrative and territorial system and internationally recognized borders.”

“As in the case of Crimea, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporiyia and Kherson remain sovereign territory of Ukraine. Ukraine has every right to restore its territorial integrity through military and diplomatic methods and will continue to liberate the temporarily occupied territories,” he said, while stressing that “it will never accept ultimatums from Russia or Moscow’s attempts to create new demarcation lines.”

In this regard, he has argued that these “fictitious” referendums are a sign on the part of Russia that “all its signals about a readiness to negotiate are a covert operation for armed aggression and a desperate attempt to retain the temporarily occupied territories.” “Russia has only shown contempt for all those who have advocated diplomacy,” he has explained.

“We hope that the relevant countries will draw conclusions about Russia’s true intentions and increase their support for Ukraine in dealing with Russian aggression, without covering up their inaction with aspirations to play a peacemaker role that Russia does not need,” the Foreign Ministry has said, calling on NATO, the European Union (EU) and the G7 to “significantly increase pressure on the aggressor state.”

Therefore, it has called for the delivery of more military support, including battle tanks, aircraft, armored vehicles, artillery and anti-aircraft defense systems, while calling on allied countries to “demonstrate to Russia that the only answer to annexation attempts, blackmail and ultimatums will be to increase support to Ukraine for the victory of the state over the aggressor.”