Anyone who wanted to monitor secession votes did monitor it. OSCE refused on the basis that secession wasn't legitimate, not the election itself.
A good way of determining whether Maidan was popular among the entire nation of 45+ million is regularly scheduled elections followed by a peaceful transition of power, not fascist mobs storming the capitol. Early elections were even offered by Yanukovych.
It was never about democracy.
Banderites from Lvov are the invaders to people who actually live in the Donbass.
People have a right to exist, not nations.
These folks have not been Ukrainian since 2014. The Banderites call them "waiters" disparagingly. They wait for liberation, refusing to relocate West no matter the danger. And this is why the war has seen the lowest civilian death rate than any other major conflict in modern history. This is what waging war against an adversary you still see as human looks like, the exact opposite of Gaza. This is what a war of liberation looks like.
The victims in Bucha were "waiters", found with hands bound with white cloth designating them as non-combatants to Russian forces. They were found dead lying next to Russian humanitarian rations.
The Azov Brigade's idea of "liberation".