Interfax: Ukraine’s deposed president says he “respects” people’s choice in election

(Interfax – May 26, 2014) Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has said he respects the choice that the Ukrainian people made in the presidential election on 25 May, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 26 May.

“An early presidential election has been held in Ukraine. Irrespective of what per cent of people in which region took part in the voting, and irrespective of what choice you have made, I respect this choice made in the most difficult time for our motherland,” Yanukovych said in a statement distributed in Rostov-na-Donu on 26 May.

The statement adds that the participation of the southeast of the country in the election is necessary for the legitimacy of the election and the Ukrainian president himself. “Many voters in those regions were insulted and humiliated by the actions of the illegitimate authorities that had taken office as a result of a military coup,” Yanukovych said.

“They are eliminating their own people with the use of grenade launchers, mortars, artillery, armoured personnel carriers, armoured infantry vehicles, tanks and combat helicopters with missile systems,” he said. “This is madness and it goes unpunished,” Yanukovych added.

“The first and the most important thing [they] should do now, particularly now, is to stop the murderous war against their own people, withdraw the troops from Donbass and Ukraine’s southeast,” Yanukovych said.

According to him, it is necessary to “immediately stop the confrontation and give peace to people”.

“Decisive actions to restore peace and order in our land are needed,” Yanukovych said.

Yanukovych slammed those who had started hostilities in Ukraine, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said on 26 May.

“More than 70 years after the end of the war against fascists, a war against people was unleashed in Ukraine. With calls for killing dissenters, neo-Nazis rushed to Ukraine’s southeast to establish their ‘new order’, and there people began to rightly call them occupiers. Today, an increasing number of people around the world have access to truthful information and they are looking with horror at one terrible crime after another,” Yanukovych said, as reported by RIA Novosti.

[featured image is file photo]