Ukraine on Tuesday asked the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia to punish it for staging annexation votes in four occupied regions. Furthermore, he warned that Moscow’s measures would not change Ukraine’s actions on the battlefield.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, after talks in Kiev with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, said personal sanctions would not be enough as a punishment for referendums. “The smoother the reaction to so-called referendums, the greater the motivation for Russia to escalate and annex more territories.”
“In the content of the eighth (EU) sanctions package, we will see how seriously the EU takes the referendum problem,” Kuleba said.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, was holding votes for a fifth and final day on Tuesday in four Ukrainian regions partly controlled by Moscow – Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia – on whether or not to secede from Russia.
The West and Kiev say the referendums are illegal and a sham. “(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s actions will have no bearing on Ukraine’s politics, diplomacy and battlefield actions,” Kuleba told a joint news conference.
Colonna said French support for Ukraine is “massive” and includes humanitarian aid, financial aid and military or diplomatic assistance totaling more than $2 billion. “Russia is increasingly isolated. No one supported his presentation to the UN Security Council. His narrative is incoherent.”
“So much so that we might even wonder if our Russian colleague believed what he was saying. Everyone can see that Russia is sinking further into an impasse, whether militarily or vis-à-vis its own people,” she said.
Source: CNN Brasil
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