US President Joe Biden warned on Friday that Russia would pay “swift and severe” costs if it uses “fake” referendums to annex regions from Ukraine.
“Russia’s vote is a travesty, a false pretext for trying to forcibly annex parts of Ukraine, a flagrant violation of international law,” Biden said in a statement.
“We will work with our allies and partners to impose swift and severe additional economic costs on Russia,” he added.
Voting will begin this morning in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and will continue for five days.
Ukrainian authorities say people vote under threat of impunity.
On the other hand, the President of the Russian Parliament (Duma) justified the referendums “The right of peoples to self-determination in the United Nations Charter“, called Vyacheslav Volodin in a message posted on Telegram.
It has already announced that it will reject the outcome of the referendum on joining the EU territories.
“The world has heard Putin’s latest statement with his plans to hold fake referendums as a prelude to an illegal merger that was never approved.” European diplomatic chief saidJoseph Borrell, in New York.
*With AFP