Kiev refuses to recognise results of Russian Duma elections

The Verkhovna Rada has refused to recognize the results of the elections to the Russian State Duma held from September 17 to 19

“The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine recognizes the regular elections of deputies to the State Duma of the Russian Federation in 2021 as illegitimate and calls upon parliaments of foreign countries and international parliamentary organizations to provide proper assessment to the fraudulent parliamentary elections in the Russian Federation”, –  reads the statement of the Ukrainian parliament.

The Kiev authorities claim that Moscow allegedly attracted Ukrainian citizens with “illegally issued Russian passports” to vote and illegally transported these people across the border to polling stations.

“The organization of voting in Crimea and the involvement of Ukrainian citizens with illegally issued Russian passports in the temporarily occupied part of Donetsk and Luhansk regions are legally null and void”, –  the Verkhovna Rada said.

In the opinion of the deputy head of the Duma committee for international affairs, Nataliya Poklonskaya, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s statements calling on Ukraine not to recognize the legitimacy of the Russian election because of Crimea and the Luhansk people’s republic “do not make sense”.

Earlier, Russian Central Electoral Commission chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said that there would be no polling stations on the territory of Donbas, but that residents of the LDPR who had received Russian passports would be able to vote in Rostov Region.