MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova excoriated, on Thursday, a recent visit to Kherson by Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs as provocative and inadmissible.

"Martin Griffiths’ visit to Russia’s Kherson and its region, where citizens voted during a referendum to join the Russian Federation and were accepted, is intentionally provocative and is, therefore, inadmissible," she said.

"UN Secretary General [Antonio Guterres] should put an end to such moves by his humanitarian department staff members," Zakharova insisted.

According to her, Guterres should instruct his staff to carry out obligations on lifting restrictions on the exports of Russian grain and fertilizers instead of embarking on inflammatory trips.

"We praise the UN’s humanitarian missions in all regions of the world," Zakharova stressed. "However, in this particular case, it was not about noble objectives to aid the needy, but about the UN Secretariat's high-ranking officials’ desire to politicize the humanitarian mission and exploit the suffering of peaceful residents, thereby fulfilling the Kiev regime’s political order."

From September 23 to September 27, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic as well as the Kherson Region and the Zaporozhye Region held a referendum where the majority of voters opted to join Russia.

On September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heads of the DPR, the LPR, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions signed treaties on their entry to Russia. Later, the State Duma and the Federation Council (the lower and upper houses of Russia’s parliament) approved legislation on ratifying these treaties, as well as federal constitutional laws on the accession of the four regions to Russia.