Ukraine's Foreign Ministry made a statement on the Russian election

This was stated in a statement published on the website of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.

Tomorrow, 7 May, Russia plans to hold an "inauguration" of Vladimir Putin. Thus, according to the Foreign Ministry, the Russian authorities are trying to create an illusion of a legitimate, almost lifelong stay of the dictator in power. At the same time, the so-called "elections" themselves violated a number of international documents, including the UN Charter, the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, the Declaration on Principles of International Law and many others.

The illegal organisation of the so-called election process in the sovereign territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation was a flagrant violation of the universally recognised norms and principles of international law," the ministry said.

The Foreign Ministry stressed that Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories were forced to participate in the "election" through threats and blackmail.

Such actions of the Russian Federation, despite warnings from authoritative international institutions, once again prove that its leadership does not recognise its responsibility and is not going to stop the illegal, unprovoked and unjustified full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine, which has been going on for more than two years and has caused numerous human casualties and destruction," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that it did not recognise the Russian election as democratic and Vladimir Putin as a legitimate president. Ukraine calls on foreign states, international organisations and the public not to recognise the Russian presidential election as well, as the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recently did by adopting a relevant resolution.