Russian President Vladimir Putin’s martial law orders in Ukraine’s occupied territories are “desperate tactics to try to enforce and control,” US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on 19 October, CNN reports.
“It should be no surprise to anybody that Russia is resorting to desperate tactics to try and enforce control in these areas,” he said at a briefing. “The truth is that Russia is not wanted in these regions, and the people in Ukraine are rejecting Russia’s illegal invasion and seizure by force of what is Ukrainian territory.”
Patel added that the Kremlin has “no legal claim whatsoever” and “there is no jurisdiction that they have” over Ukraine’s sovereign territories of Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia.
