11 May 2014

First of all, it is clear that the ‘referendum’ in the cities and towns of Donetsk and Luhansk is not ‘free’ and will not reflect the opinion of the population. Journalists, Ukrainian and from international media (BBC), who have tried to report on the today’s voting tell of polling stations that have no voting booths, no electoral registers, no records of who has come in or how many people are on the electoral lists.  But most polling stations have a collection box to raise money for the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Supporters of Ukraine continue to receive death threats (for example a teacher who refused to allow her school to be used as a polling station), are beaten-up and taken hostage. One death has already been confirmed today, where pro-Russian separatists killed a man for his loyalty to Ukraine.

Secondly, in Mariupol, Valeriy Andrushchuk, the Mariupol chief of police, was kidnapped by pro-Russian separatists on May 9. He was found hung not far from the Mariupol airport.

The People’s Court, of the People’s Republic of Donetsk, created a special legal organ with the functions of a military tribunal. They are the ones who sentenced Valeriy Andrushchuk to death. The sentence was carried out on an aspen tree in a stretch of woods on the northern outskirts of the city of Mariupol. Militants from what are called ‘the In Memory of May 2 Luhansk People’s Army’ carried out the execution.

Thirdly, Ukrainska Pravda reported on a press conference in Kyiv today where presidential spokesman Serhiy Pashynskyy, said that a certain number of Russia’s armoured vehicles on the border with Ukraine are displaying the colours of a UN peacekeeping force.

The Presidential Administration responded to a question on Russia’s intentions to bring in so-called peacekeepers on the basis of the ‘referendums’ in the Donbas.

Pashynskyy emphasized that peacekeepers can enter a country only on the basis of a decision by the UN Security Council, and that others ‘are not peacekeepers but occupiers.’