Referendum in eastern Ukraine in 2014

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Proportion of ethnic Russians by region (2001 census): Donetsk with 38.2 and Luhansk with 39 percent of the population of Russian descent
Events and battles of the
war in Ukraine

The 2014 referendum in Eastern Ukraine was a referendum organized by pro-Russian separatists on the state autonomy of Donbass in Luhansk Oblast and Donetsk Oblast on May 11, 2014 during the initial stages of the war in Ukraine . The question asked by the participants was whether they support the state independence of the Donetsk People's Republic or the Luhansk People's Republic , although the consequences of consenting were unclear at the time of the survey.

According to the OSCE Chairman , the referendum was not constitutional and therefore illegal. Both preparation and implementation were even less in line with international standards than the referendum in Crimea.

background

In 2014, in connection with the events of the Euromaidan, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was dismissed after he had fled abroad.

Armed forces of a so-called pro-Russian people's militia , with covert Russian support, had occupied many administrative buildings in a number of cities in this almost 40 percent Russian-speaking region since April 2014. (See main article: War in Ukraine since 2014 ) They had also proclaimed the two People's Republics and determined their leadership.

The Ukrainian government saw the guilt of the conflict, in which dozens of people were killed and hundreds injured, with the armed men: "A dialogue with terrorists is impossible and unimaginable." On April 12, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense launched an "anti-terrorist operation" Intervention in the region, which was carried out largely without the use of weapons and therefore caused little change.

At the time of voting, it was unclear whether the vote was about autonomy , political independence or a first step towards admission to the Russian Federation .

Surveys in the run-up to the vote had shown a two-thirds majority against a split.

aims

The questioning should legitimize the armed forces.

"The result of the referendum applies regardless of the voter turnout", the election supervisor Roman Ljagin was quoted as saying before the implementation. It was probably only possible to vote in 14 municipalities under the control of the rebels. This meant that not even half of the population in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions had the opportunity to participate.

Ballot papers cast in Donetsk for the referendum in eastern Ukraine
Ballot boxes in Donetsk

illegality

The legal basis, planning, organization and implementation of the “referendum” did not even come close to meeting legal standards. A single question is asked on the ballot paper: "Do you support the Declaration of Independence of the Donetsk People's Republic?" Whoever votes "No" to the question will decide to "stay in today's fascist Ukraine," said Roman Lyagin, who is chairman of the Central Electoral Commission of the Donetsk People's Republic "called.

The Ukrainian political scientist Sergei Tkachenko suspected days before the referendum to the Schwäbisches Tagblatt that the forces of the people's militia would under no circumstances be sufficient to be able to hold more than one questioning - and that they too would probably "only succeed with the barrel of their rifle at gunpoint."

The governor of Donetsk Oblast was ousted. The “electoral commission” set up by the separatists was not independent. According to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, pro-Ukrainian activists had fled to Kiev from the large cities of Donetsk and Luhansk after kidnappings and murders.

The chairman of the OSCE and also the president of the parliamentary assembly called the referendums illegitimate and called for them not to be held, whereby Ranko Krivokapić also mentioned the climate of fear, violence and lawlessness.

Course of the survey

On May 11, 2014, the survey began on the autonomy of the Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic . Territorially, the two areas comprise the Donetsk Oblast and the Luhansk Oblast . More than 1,500 electoral district commissions had been formed in Donetsk Oblast and 3.2 million eligible voters from 4.2 million inhabitants were called on to take part in the survey. The election supervisor of the Central Electoral Commission is Roman Ljagin. In Luhansk Oblast, 1.7 million eligible voters out of 2.2 million inhabitants were able to cast their votes in 1,610 polling stations. There was also a place in Moscow for interviewing "residents who live in Russia".

The question to be answered is: "Do you support the state independence of the Donetsk / Luhansk People's Republic?" The organizations referred to electoral lists from 2012 “where available”.

During the survey, contradicting consequences of consent were formulated. Roman Ljagin, election supervisor of the Central Election Commission, said according to various sources that the status of the region would remain unchanged after the referendum, it was only about expressing the will to self-determination.

Armed fighters were present during the questioning.

Focus Online , Tages-Anzeiger and Bild write that the participants could have voted as often as they wanted, the NZZ described the process with the words: "In view of the way the referendum was organized, it cannot be of a meaningful one Result can be assumed. "

Results of the survey announced by the organizers

According to initial reports, almost 90 percent of the participants in the Donetsk region spoke out in favor of secession from Ukraine. Ten percent of the participants voted against it, said the head of the self-appointed election commission of Donetsk, Roman Ljagin. The voter turnout was almost 75 percent. In Luhansk, with a turnout of over 80 percent, almost 96 percent of the voters would have voted for independence from Kiev. The alleged results of the surveys were thus in the area of voting in the Crimea , despite the higher proportion of the ethnic Russian population there. In addition, according to the report of the Human Rights Council with the Russian President , the result in Crimea was already falsified. Many of those who voted for an Anschluss actually wanted to use their vote to protest “against the arbitrariness and corruption of the regional leadership appointed by the ousted President Viktor Yanukovych”. A fact is the participation of an unknown number of people whose will at least is there for greater independence within Ukraine. Another fact is that the technical implementation of the surveys does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the percentage of people in the total population who want a change.

Incidents

  • The People's Armed Forces militias in Slovyansk had captured several dozen opponents, as “People's Mayor” Vyacheslav Ponomarev announced in a press conference on Saturday, May 10th.
  • In Swatowe , a town of 20,000 near Luhansk, the mayor-elect Yevgen Ribalko refused to hold the vote despite being visited twice by dozens of armed men demanding that the referendum be held. "It is my job to enforce the Ukrainian laws," said Ribalko.
  • In Krasnoarmiysk , fatal shots were fired in a scuffle during the election. Public media reports that pro-Russian militias had shot at civilians turn out to be false. In fact, the Ukrainian National Guard stormed a polling station and shot at supporters of the referendum.

National and international statements

Russia

Surprisingly for many international observers, on May 7, 2014, Russian President Putin appealed to the organizers to postpone the referendums in order to facilitate a national dialogue in Ukraine. After refusing to postpone, Putin called for a "dialogue on equal terms" between the government in Kiev and the forces in the east. This is the key to reducing tension. The Süddeutsche Zeitung speculated in this regard whether Putin's request was a diversionary maneuver, since he called for a postponement, not a cancellation of the referendum. With the demand for a “direct, full-fledged dialogue between today's Kiev power and representatives of the south-east of Ukraine”, he may want to legitimize the movement as a negotiating partner. As early as May 12th, the Russian Presidential Office announced that the government in Kiev must now implement the "result". The OSCE could help organize the dialogue. President Putin announced that he would first analyze the result before commenting.

European Union and OSCE as well as western states

The EU and the OSCE do not recognize the consultation. The OSCE negotiated a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Moscow and Kiev. A "round table" including Russia, Ukraine and the separatists was under discussion. Germany, France, the USA and other countries call the “referendum” illegal.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Crimean crisis: Ukraine fears a two-front war . welt.de , March 12, 2014. Accessed August 24, 2016.
  2. ^ Andreas Kappeler: Brief history of the Ukraine. Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-67019-0 , p. 361.
  3. ↑ Julian Hans : Russian secret service agent for Eastern Ukraine. “I pressed the trigger for the war”. sueddeutsche.de, November 21, 2014, accessed on December 19, 2014 .
  4. ^ For a New Russia in Eastern Ukraine , FAZ of May 10, 2014, p. 2.
  5. ↑ Referendum in Eastern Ukraine: Separatists oppose the Kremlin. In: Spiegel Online . May 8, 2014, accessed May 12, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Referendum in Eastern Ukraine: The Great Farce , Spiegel Online, May 10, 2014
  7. ↑ Controversial referendum starts accompanied by skirmishes FAZ on May 11, 2014.
  8. ↑ «We don't want to hear any more from Ukraine». Tages-Anzeiger , May 11, 2014, accessed May 12, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Raniah Salloum: referendum in eastern Ukraine: The great farce. In: Spiegel Online . May 10, 2014, accessed May 11, 2014 .
  10. ^ A b c Florian Hassel: Referendum in the Ukraine: The strange methods of the separatists. In: Süddeutsche.de . May 8, 2014, accessed May 11, 2014 .
  11. ↑ tagblatt.de
  12. ↑ OSCE Parliamentary Assembly president calls for cancellation of 'absurd' referendums in eastern Ukraine , OSCE press release, May 10, 2014.
  13. ↑ "Residents who live in Russia" can go to a pub in Moscow
  14. ↑ DW.de: “Referendum” in eastern Ukraine unreliable on May 11, 2014.
  15. ↑ The Returning Officer Roman Ljagin unaltered state declared the region after the referendum
  16. ↑ Ridiculous but extremely dangerous. Tages-Anzeiger , accessed on May 12, 2014 .
  17. ↑ Fair elections? So brazen could be cheated in the referendum. Focus Online , accessed May 12, 2014 .
  18. ^ Referendum farce in eastern Ukraine - separatists want to build state structures , NZZ, May 11, 2014.
  19. ↑ Show of farce - Ukrainian separatists are getting better at holding fake referendums , Quartz , May 12, 2014; Carl Bildt; "No way of knowing even turnout."
  20. ↑ Russia is threatened with new sanctions. ORF , May 11, 2014, accessed on May 12, 2014 .
  21. ↑ Ukraine referendum: rebels report 89 percent, nobody recognizes the result. Deutsche Wirtschafts-Nachrichten, May 12, 2014, accessed on May 12, 2014 .
  22. ↑ Allegedly large majority in favor of secession in eastern Ukraine. Deutsche Welle , May 11, 2014, accessed on May 13, 2014 .
  23. ↑ Christian Weisflog: Crimean referendum heavily falsified. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , May 5, 2014, accessed on May 13, 2014 .
  24. ↑ Проблемы жителей Крыма. Human Rights Council to the Russian President , April 21, 2014, accessed on May 13, 2014 (Russian, report “Problems of the Crimean People”).
  25. ↑ Ukraine before the ultimate test . wienerzeitung.at , May 10, 2014, accessed on August 24, 2016.
  26. ↑ Mayor in Swatowje, who is obliged to comply with the law ( Memento of May 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Stern . May 12, 2014.
  27. ↑ a b Internet activists accuse ARD and ZDF of anti-Russian propaganda , Spiegel Online on September 27, 2014.
  28. ↑ Krasnoarmiysk: At least one dead. Spiegel Online , accessed May 12, 2014 .
  29. ↑ star; Variant of Krasnoarmiysk without the dead. Stern.de , archived from the original on May 12, 2014 ; accessed on May 12, 2014 .
  30. ↑ a b Ukraine separatists insist on referendum. Deutsche Welle , May 8, 2014, accessed on May 11, 2014 .
  31. ^ Kremlin recognizes referendum in eastern Ukraine. Courier , May 12, 2014, accessed May 12, 2014 .
  32. ↑ News SRF. Audio file for dialogue with the help of the OSCE. Swiss radio and television , May 12, 2014, accessed on February 17, 2020 .
  33. ↑ Putin wants to analyze the result of the referendum first. Die Welt , May 12, 2014, accessed May 12, 2014 .
  34. ↑ East of Ukraine votes on secession from Kiev. Transitional government calls referendum "criminal farce". Die Welt , May 11, 2014, accessed on May 11, 2014 .