Zelensky Says He Won’t Talk to Putin Because of Referenda, Demands Even More Western Money

Zelensky was already refusing to talk to Putin, so this doesn’t seem like a very important statement.

However, this is the first time he’s asked for money.

AP:

Ukraine’s president warned Tuesday that Russia’s just concluded “sham referendums” and attempts to annex Ukrainian territory rule out any talks with Moscow as long as Vladimir Putin remains president, and called for Russia’s “complete isolation” and tough new global sanctions.

Speaking to the U.N. Security Council by video link over Russian objections, Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged additional military and financial support to defend Ukraine “so the aggressor would lose,” and “clear and legally binding guarantees of collective security” for his country in response to Russia’s latest grab for Ukrainian territory.

What’s he gonna do with the money? Buy back the Donbass?

That would be cheaper than trying to fight for the territory, actually.

The referendums, denounced by Kyiv and its Western allies as rigged, took place in the Russian-controlled Luhansk and Kherson regions, and in occupied areas of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. They are widely viewed as a pretext for announcements that Russia is annexing the territories, just as it annexed Crimea in 2014.

Pro-Moscow officials said later Tuesday that residents in all four occupied areas of Ukraine voted to join Russia, a likely prelude to annexations possibly within days that would set the stage for a new and potentially more dangerous phase in the seven-month war following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of its smaller neighbor.

Ukraine called the emergency meeting of the Security Council to respond to the referendums, and the expected annexation announcements from Russia.

“Any annexation in the modern world is a crime, a crime against all states that consider the inviolability of border to be vital for themselves,” Zelenskyy said.

I’ve heard some states don’t actually view their borders as inviolable.

Not sure.

He accused Russia of destroying “the main body of international law,” and responding to “any proposals for talks with a new brutality on the battlefield, with even greater crisis and threats to Ukraine and the world.”

“Russia’s recognition of these sham referenda as normal, the implementation of the so-called Crimean scenario and another attempt to annex Ukrainian territory, will mean that there is nothing to talk about with this president of Russia,” Zelenskyy said. “Annexation is the kind of move that puts him alone against the whole of humanity.”

They’re not claiming that the referendums were not real. They’re just claiming that these people don’t have a right to leave the country.

In actual fact, by the United Nations definition, Russian-speaking Ukrainians are “non-self-governing peoples.” They are an ethnic minority no different than the Kurds.

The American Society of International Law says this of the Kurds:

The application of contemporary law on self-determination to the Kurds should be clear, as the Kurds are the paradigm of a distinct people who would benefit from self-determination because of their well-defined peoplehood. Internal self-determination as a minority group within multiple states limits the Kurds in terms of political autonomy, or even unity as a nation.

…

The Kurds have arguably not received the treatment they deserve, not only from the major powers, but also their host states. To this day, Kurds continue to lack recognized status and are still denied a sovereign state of their own. This calls into question the actual strength of the legal principle of self-determination.

All of that applies to Russians trapped in the Ukraine.

What is even the argument here? Ukrainians banned Russian-Ukrainians speaking their own language, they were bombing them for 8 years, killing tens of thousands of people. Now they’re not allowed to vote – because why? Because borders are inviolable?

What about Serbia’s borders? What about the fact that all of these people are openly promoting Kurdistan?

These people can just use totally different arguments simultaneously for their own purposes. There is zero consistency. These people go out there and keep saying they’re a “rules-based order,” but if you ask them what the rules are, they refuse to answer.