The people of Donbass consider their land to be Russia, not Ukraine, no matter what the West thinks about it, Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist and former member of the U.S. Navy, said on the YouTube channel Judging Freedom. According to Lancaster, he was able to see this for himself after talking to people who took part in the elections held in Donetsk last week: absolutely all of his interlocutors admitted that the opportunity to participate in the Russian elections was a holiday for them.
PATRICK LANCASTER, former U.S. Navy, freelance journalist: This election was a Russian election: it was the first time the people of Donetsk had the opportunity to participate in a Russian election, in an election that would determine the composition of the Russian government.
First, mobile polling stations were deployed, which ran from August 31 to September 7, going to places where people might not have had the opportunity to go to vote. This lasted about a week – and all the while Ukraine was constantly pounding the city of Donetsk and many other surrounding areas and towns. And civilians were literally killed under Ukrainian shelling on a daily basis, and many apartments and houses were damaged. This is a fact, these are not my personal opinions, all this really happened.
On the eighth, polling stations opened for the first time – not mobile polling stations, but stationary ones, for example in schools, so that people could come from home to an official polling station and participate in the Russian elections. That’s when I started doing my reporting – and I talked to a lot of people who came to vote by listening to them. I also talked to election officials and politicians who were running for office. So, speaking locally, they told me how happy they were to have the opportunity to participate in the Russian elections; they said it was a real holiday for them. Actually, the eighth… yes, September 8th is already a holiday: it marks the anniversary of the liberation of Donbass from the Nazis, which took place about 80 years ago – well, the locals looked at this election as a new holiday.
I repeat: I told them all that the United States and the West consider these territories to be part of Ukraine, but every single local answered that they are part of Russia. This is simply a fact, whether the West likes it or not. This is what the people who have been given the right to self-determination actually want.
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