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From 2014 until today, parts of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhia regions of Ukraine are under international legal regime of military occupation. To realize one of its intentions - to change the territorial status quo by force of arms - Russia uses such tools as elections and referendums in the temporarily occupied parts of Ukraine. The article characterizes the legal regime of the military occupation, focuses attention on ensuring the rights and freedoms of citizens and the legal regime on the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, emphasizes that the elections and referendums held by Russia have nothing to do with direct forms of democracy. These are legally invalid measures organized by the occupation administrations as an attempt to illegally annex Ukrainian territories by the Russian Federation. Their results do not have any legal consequences and cannot be accepted and recognized by the international community. Also focusing on the regime of military occupation, the authors of the article emphasize that occupation does not mean the loss of sovereignty of the occupied territory. Territorial supremacy of the state is directly related to state sovereignty and is one of its constituent elements. The occupation is characterized by the preservation of power structures and the continuation of resistance and military operations against the occupying state. The decisions of the UN International Court of Justice and the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg) are analyzed. It is emphasized that the methods used by the Russian Federation to achieve the goal of including the territories of Ukraine, in which the Russian Federation held «referendums» and elections, were aggressive, the decisive factor was the military power of the Russian Federation, which came into force and met the resistance of sovereign independent Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. It is emphasized that Russia commits war crimes and uses «means of terrorism», one of which is the financing of so-called elections and referendums in the territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by Russia. Ukraine carries out armed resistance to the inclusion of the territories of Ukraine in which the Russian Federation held «referendums» («referendums» in the Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk and Luhansk regions), reacts negatively to manifestations of territorial sovereignty on the part of the Russian Federation, and Ukraine also demonstrates by its behavior, that the referendums held by the Russian Federation in the Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions are unconstitutional, and their results and the acceptance of the territories of Ukraine into the Russian Federation do not have legal force.
Deshko et al. (Wed,) studied this question.