Ukraine Shoots Down Melenchon's Donbass Referendum Idea

Kyiv didn't waste any time swatting down Jean-Luc Melenchon's referendum pitch. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said Monday that votes staged under occupation function as instruments of annexation, not genuine expressions of what residents want. His response came after the La France Insoumise leader and 2027 French presidential candidate floated the idea of letting Donbass residents decide their own future.

Melenchon made his proposal in a November 7 speech, suggesting residents of the Donbass region could be consulted on whether to stay with Ukraine or join Russia as part of a potential territorial settlement.

Tykhyi reached back to 1991 for his counterargument. More than 90% of Ukrainians backed independence within the country's current, internationally recognized borders in that referendum, he recalled, and support ran as high as 83% in Donbass itself. No democratic country would accept such a process for its own borders, he said, so it shouldn't be proposed to Ukrainians.

The exchange puts a fresh spotlight on how Western political figures' peace ideas land in Kyiv, where any vote touching territory draws instant fire. Melenchon, a candidate in France's next presidential race, now has a blunt rejection on the record from Ukraine's Foreign Ministry.