Ukraine on Saturday declared plans to include its occupied territories in Russia’s presidential elections next spring as “null and void”.
It has threatened to prosecute any observers sent to monitor the elections.
The president of Russia will be chosen this week by the upper house, and chairperson Valentina Matviyenko announced that voters in four occupied Ukrainian regions will be permitted to cast their first ballots.
Reuters reports that, Russia claims to have annexed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions in the east and south of Ukraine during referenda last year dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a sham, but does not fully control any of them.
It also seized the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
“We call on the international community to resolutely condemn Russia’s intention to hold presidential elections in the occupied Ukrainian territories, and to impose sanctions on those involved in their organization and conduct,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.
It also warned countries against sending observers to the “pseudo-elections”, saying offenders would “face criminal responsibility”.
“Any election in Russia has nothing to do with democracy. They serve only as a tool to keep the Russian regime in power,” the ministry said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he would run for president again, a move expected to keep him in power until at least 2030
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