White House: Russian ‘referendums’ affront to Ukraine’s sovereignty and integrity

“If this (referendums – ed.) does transpire, the United States will never recognize Russia’s claims to any purportedly annexed parts of Ukraine. We will never recognize this territory as anything other than a part of Ukraine,” he said.

Sullivan stressed that the Biden administration will be “unequivocal” in rejecting such attempts by the Russian Federation and called it an affront to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. In this regard, the representative of the White House noted that President Joe Biden would express a strong position in his speech at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.

As reported by Ukrinform, State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin called on accepting the temporarily captured territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions into Russia. Russian mass media reported that the occupying administrations decided to hold “referendums on joining Russia” in the temporarily captured areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine. The occupiers plan to hold their so-called referendums from September 23 to 27.