Ukraine condemns Russian plan to hold ‘election’ in occupied territory

Vladimir Putin will run again in presidential elections slated for March next year

Ukraine on Saturday condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections inoccupied territory next year.

Declaring such an election “null and void”, the Ukrainian foreign ministry threatened to prosecute any international observer sent to monitor the ballot.

Russia’s upper house has set the date for the country’s next presidential for 17 March next year, though the result is already a foregone conclusion with there being little organised political opposition left in the country.

President Vladimir Putin will run for president again, he announced on Friday at a stage-managed Kremlin awards ceremony where war veterans pleaded with him to seek re-election.

“I won’t hide it from you – I had various thoughts about it over time, but now, you’re right, it’s necessary to make a decision,” Mr Putin said in a video released by the Kremlin after the event.

“I will run for president of the Russian Federation.”

The 71-year-old autocrat has been in power since 1999, bar a four-year stint as prime minister under Dmitry Medvedev, during which he was widely regarded to still be at the helm of the Kremlin.

The chair of Russia's upper house, Valentina Matviyenko, declared that residents in four occupied Ukrainian regions would be able to vote for the first time.

“We call on the international community to resolutely condemn Russia’s intention to hold presidential elections in the occupied Ukrainian territories, and to impose sanctionson those involved in their organisation and conduct,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry responded.

"Any election in Russia has nothing to do with democracy. They serve only as a tool to keep the Russian regime in power.”

Russia claims to have annexed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions in the east and south of Ukraine in September last year. In reality it only controls parts of them.

It illegally seized the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Mr Putin subsequently introduced martial law in those areas, and Russian lawmakers amended regulations to allow elections in territories where martial law was in place. Russian authorities held elections in the annexed regions in September for Moscow-installed legislatures; Ukraine and its Western allies denounced the votes as a sham.

On Thursday, the head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, said that together with the Russian military, security forces and the Moscow-appointed governors in Ukraine, election authorities would decide by 12 December on “the possibility of holding” the presidential vote in the Ukrainian regions.

“After weighing in all pros and cons, we will be making this decision. If we decide (to hold the vote), then the next step would be to adopt a plan for holding elections there,” Ms Pamfilova was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying. “Of course, [while] it will be somewhat different from the balloting in Russian regions, the law allows for it.”

Additional reporting by agencies