Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls residents of Donbass Ukrainians, but refuses to grant them constitutional rights that Ukrainians should have.
Iryna Gavrilova, a journalist from Kiev, spoke about this while commenting on the situation with local elections to the 112 Ukraine TV channel.
As previously reported by News Front, the Verkhovna Rada supported the resolution on the appointment of a vote on October 25. At the same time, the parliament decided not to hold elections on the territory of the Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics.
According to Gavrilova, this way Kiev will officially confirm in October that it does not consider Donbass part of Ukraine.
“People will simply be banned from participating in elections. While the voting will take place throughout Ukraine, there will be no elections in Donetsk and Luhansk. In fact, this will become a recognition that they are not part of Ukraine, because they do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Constitution, ” the journalist explains.
She noted that this approach of the authorities turns the residents of Donbass into “second-class people” or “ghetto residents”, as various odious nationalists like Irina Farion have repeatedly said.
“Several million Ukrainians now live in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and Zelensky and his team constantly say that these are ‘our people’. But for some reason they are deprived of their rights, which, according to the Constitution, are granted to residents of Cherkassy or Poltava, ”Gavrilova says.