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Jerusalem’s rare rebuke is expected to increase Israeli-Russian tensions.
By Pesach Benson, United with Israel
Israel will not recognize Russia’s annexation of breakaway areas of eastern Ukraine, Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday.
The rebuke joined a chorus of international criticism for a seriews of referendums in the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Luhansk and Donetsk regions regarded by the West as a sham.
“Israel recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and will not recognizes the results of referendums in the eastern districts of Ukraine,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The referendums asked residents whether they wanted the four occupied southern and eastern Ukraine regions to be incorporated into Russia. In many instances, armed officials went door-to-door collecting votes.
According to Russian-installed election officials, 93% of the ballots cast in the Zaporizhzhia region supported annexation, as did 87% in the Kherson region, 98% in the Luhansk region and 99% in Donetsk.
The officials in those occupied regions said they would ask President Vladimir Putin to incorporate them into Russia. Moscow has not yet formally announced it intends to annex those regions, but Kremlin rhetoric points in that direction.
Jerusalem’s rebuke will increase friction between Israel and Russia. The war in Ukraine has strained Israeli-Russian security arrangements in Syria, and a Kremlin crackdown on the Jewish Agency threatens Russian aliyah.
Putin added further pressure with a veiled warning in his Rosh Hashanah greetings to Russia’s Jewish community.
“It is very important that while retaining their loyalty to old spiritual traditions, Russia’s Jews make a hefty contribution to the preservation of cultural diversity in our country, to strengthening interethnic concord and the principles of mutual respect and religious tolerance,” Putin said.
Around 150,000 Jews live in Russia.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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