The European Union on Monday condemned Russia’s holding of “so-called elections” in occupied territories in Ukraine, following Moscow’s announcement that Russian President Vladimir Putin had won a landslide victory.
The European Union strongly condemns the illegal holding of so-called ‘elections’ in the territories of Ukraine that Russia has temporarily occupied,” it said in a statement.
The EU referred to the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, annexed by Moscow in violation of international law in 2014, and the mainland regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson.
The European Union reiterates that it does not and would never recognise either the holding of these “so-called elections” in the territories of Ukraine or their results.
It said the elections “are null and void and cannot produce any legal effect whatsoever.”
The statement also said, “The shocking death of opposition politician Alexei Navalny in the run-up to the elections is yet another sign of the accelerating and systematic repression.”
dpa/NAN