Ukraine launches national flag with balloons over Russian-held Donetsk

A huge blue-and-yellow Ukranian national flag flew for hours over the Russia-held city of Donetsk as it held sham elections Saturday.

In an embarrassment for Russian President Putin, the Ukrainian military managed to launch the giant flag attached to helium-filled balloons and send it over the country’s third-largest city.

The flag was released in Avdiivka, about 15 miles north of Donetsk, to celebrate its anniversary Saturday. It then drifted south toward the occupied city, irking Russian forces, who tried to shoot it down.

“Today is the 245th anniversary of the founding of Avdiyivka. We started the day with activity – we launched the state flag on balloons into the sky,” Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the Avidiiv city military administration told Suspilne, Ukraine’s public broadcasting company. “It flew over Donetsk.”

“We can already hear the interceptions, they are a little mad about it,” Barabash added. “They tried to shoot it down. But over the Kyiv district of Donetsk, the state the flag is already flying,”

Meanwhile, in Donetsk and other Moscow-occupied territories, Russian authorities were holding elections that have been denounced as a sham by Kyiv and the West.

The voting for Russia-installed legislatures began over the weekend in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions as Moscow tries to tighten its grip on the territories it illegally annexed a year ago.

The votes, set to conclude Sunday, were called “fake elections” by Ukraine’s Foreign ministry and the Council of Europe, the continent’s preeminent human rights body, said “it constitutes a flagrant violation of international law, which Russia continues to disregard.”

Western nations also clashed with Russia over the vote at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

“You can’t hold elections in someone else’s country,” British Ambassador Barbara Woodward said.

However, Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, defended the decision and said people “are actively and consciously voting for their future together with Russia.”

With Post Wires.