Ukraine Russia Conflict: Russia granting occupied Ukrainians citizenship is an attempt to ‘impose will by force’ says US

Reacting to Russia’s move to fast track citizenship for Ukrainians living in areas held by Russian troops, the US has said it is a move “to subjugate the people of Ukraine, to impose their will by force”.

“We have seen Russian forces forcibly remove individuals from occupied territory. We have seen Russia’s forces transport Ukrainians to the so-called filtration camps,” the US state department’s spokesman Ned Price said. “We have seen Russia’s forces attempt through other ways to subjugate, otherwise subdue the Ukrainian people in these areas,” Mr Price said.

“So to the extent that this is an effort that is only loosely disguised as an element of Russia’s attempt to subjugate the people of Ukraine, to impose their will by force, that is something that we would forcefully reject,” he further said.

“It is not entirely unlike Russia’s attempts to manufacture these fake referenda, referenda that are designed to offer the veneer of legitimacy to Russian rule over parts of what is sovereign Ukrainian territory; referenda where Russian-backed officials tend to somehow accrue 90-plus, 99 percent of the vote.”

Meanwhile, Russia on 24th February launched its invasion of Ukraine. And, according to the latest updates, Ukraine’s president and foreign minister have pleaded with the west to send more weapons to their military in the face of Russia’s intensifying assault on the eastern Donbas region. Russian forces have launched fresh assaults on towns in eastern Ukraine, with the city of Sievierodonetsk increasingly in danger of being totally encircled. Also, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Moscow’s plan to simplify the process of handing Russian citizenship to residents of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied regions violates international law.