MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/. The West, by refusing to recognize the referendums in the DPR, the LPR, the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, is ignoring the democratic right to self-determination enshrined in all international documents, Igor Borisov, a member of Russia’s Central Election Commission, told TASS on Wednesday.
"The referendums on the self-determination of Ukraine’s south-eastern territories were valid de facto and de jure. Their results do not suit the rather powerful transatlantic political players who have quite recently ‘ruled the world’ by organizing ‘democratic takeovers’," he pointed out.
Nowadays, according to Borisov, with that same aggression and might of its media resources, the West is trying to prove the opposite - the absence of the peoples’ right to self-determination enshrined in all international documents. "They are trying to unleash a discourse around the issue of the peoples’ right to express their will, and the right to determine their destiny. The people of Ukraine who organized their plebiscites on their future fate had the full right to do so for humanitarian reasons," he stressed.
"The path to their future self-determination that the citizens of the liberated territories have chosen fully complies with civilized democratic standards and the generally recognized rules," the CEC official added.
"We are also aware of quite different examples when decisions were made contrary to the peoples’ will, but the collective West recognized them for political purposes," he specified, citing the example of the breakup of the Soviet Union when a number of its republics left the USSR despite public opposition to that, yet their "exit" was approved by the West.
Borisov also hoped that the majority of countries worldwide would realize the historic significance of the events of September 27, 2022 while "common sense and universal human values will prevail over manipulative approaches and double standards that are still dominating global international politics."
On September 23-27, the DPR, the LPR, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions held referendums on joining Russia. The majority of residents in these regions voted in favor of this decision.