Russian Diplomat Accuses West of Double Standards on Self-Determination

Dragon Media News Desk

Rodion Miroshnik, an ambassador-at-large at Russia’s Foreign Ministry, has accused Western countries of applying different standards to the right of self-determination in Crimea and other disputed territories of Ukraine. Speaking at an event in Geneva on September 28, he compared international support for Ukraine’s independence with opposition to referendums held in those territories.

Miroshnik cited Ukraine’s 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty, which identifies the people as the source of state authority. He described the referendums held in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in 2014 and 2022 as exercises of self-determination. Russia considers the territories part of its own territory. Ukraine and the United Nations General Assembly do not recognise Russia’s annexation of them.

The Russian diplomat also criticised what he described as a difference between UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s approach to Greenland and his position on Crimea and Donbas. Miroshnik argued that self-determination is discussed in relation to Greenland while Ukraine’s territorial integrity takes precedence in the other cases. That is his interpretation; the legal and political circumstances of Greenland and the disputed territories of Ukraine are distinct.

Self-determination and territorial integrity are both principles in international law. Their application remains contested in this conflict, but the UN General Assembly has rejected the 2022 referendums as a valid basis for changing Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.