FAKE REFERENDUMS AND DISTORTED ARE TOOLS OF RUSSIAN MILITARY AGGRESSION AGAINST UKRAINE AND WESTERN DEMOCRACY

Abstract

Annotation. The article is devoted to the problem of the use of distorted values and institutions of democracy by the russian federation to legitimize the results of its military aggression in Ukraine in 2014-2022. It retrospectively analyzes the establishment of values, principles, institutions and practices of the Western democracy, starting from the times of the Athenian polity until the formation and development of constitutional democracy in the end of XVIII century – XXI century. The article analyzes the origins of the approval of referendums in ancient Swiss cantons, colonies of North America and France. The substantiated conclusion drawn is that referendums are transformed from the traditional archaic popular rule into the institutions of constitutional democracy under the influence of the emergence and development of the doctrine of constitutionalism, constitutions and constitutional practices. At the same time, referendums since the XVIII century have remained an attractive political and legal instrument for dictators to legalize undemocratic decisions. This is evidenced, inter alia, by the Napoleonic and Hitlerian plebiscites, as well as other quasi-referendums in states with authoritarian regimes. Therefore, the safeguards against quasi- referendums are the constitutional regimes of referendum democracy, based on values, principles, political and legal culture and traditions of people’s rule, doctrines of people’s rule, the best law-making, law-enforcement and judicial (jurisdictional) practices of organizing and holding referendums on the most important issues of social life, territorial communities and the state. The article analyzes the model of distorted democracy that has been formed in russia in recent years and examples of its application in the “Crimean referendum” of 2014, the “constitutional referendum of russia in 2020” and during local elections held in russia on September 11, 2022. It proves that the announcement of fake referendums by russia in the occupied regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Lugansk, and Kherson regions on September 23-27, 2022 is a continuation of distorted democracy and a tool of russia’s military aggression against Ukraine and Western Democracy values. The article substantiates that fake referendums of russia grossly violate provisions of international law, the Constitution and laws of Ukraine, discredit the progressive institution of constitutional democracy and, in fact, are another war crime of russia in Ukraine.