DONETSK, November 18. /TASS/. Vladimir Bdyovka, the speaker of the Donetsk People’s Republic’s legislature, on Friday said investigations into the organizers of the republic’s referendum that are conducted by Ukrainian special services are fake.
"The SBU has traditionally been engaged in fake investigations on the territories that are no longer part of Ukraine," he told TASS, using the acronym for the Security Service of Ukraine.
The lawmaker said the DPR effectively seceded from Ukraine in May 2014 to become an independent state.
"The decision that our residents made during the referendum in 2022, I emphasize, the residents of the Donetsk People's Republic, a state that’s separate from Ukraine, are our internal affairs, and not Ukrainian," he said.
Bidyovka said the accusations that the SBU makes against the organizers of the referendum for the DPR to join Russia are groundless. He said their only basis is a failure to accept reality and they are provocative.
"Instead of creating the appearance of work, looking for the ‘enemies of the Ukrainian people’ outside Ukraine, it would be much more useful for them to check inside their own country while it still exists, although now it’s within completely different borders," the lawmaker said.
Earlier, the Ukrainian special services announced the opening of a case against 12 residents of the Donetsk People's Republic who helped to prepare the referendum for the republic to join Russia, which took place from September 23 to 27.