On Thursday, October 29, Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Ievhen Tsymbaliuk said during a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council that holding elections at gunpoint in the occupied Crimea and Donbas is impossible.
“Holding elections at gunpoint is impossible. The Russian occupation administrations in the Donbas and Crimea, whatever the Russian side calls them, remain what they are. Until Russian forces are withdrawn from Ukraine, within its internationally recognized borders, elections are impossible there”,- Tsymbaliuk said.
The Representative of Ukraine also recalled that the holding of Russian elections in Crimea and the Donbas is illegal, and their results are negligible.
Ievhen Tsymbaliuk stressed that Russia's aggressive behavior, militarization and armed provocations on the border with Ukraine remain the most serious security problem for Ukraine. It also continues to destabilize the entire region.
“We again call on the Russian Federation to abandon the illegal occupation of Crimea, the militarization of the Black and Azov Seas, and also to end aggression against Ukraine, including by withdrawing its armed formations, mercenaries and their equipment from the temporarily occupied territories”,- he added.