The White House reacted to the results of the presidential elections in Russia.
“First of all, the election result was not unpredictable, because Putin closed the political space, imprisoned political opponents, some of his political opponents died tragically. Therefore, there was nothing free or fair about these elections,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at a briefing.
At the same time, he noted that the reality is that Putin is the president of the Russian Federation, and we have to deal with this reality.
“Secondly, the reality is that President Putin is the president of Russia, and we’ve had to deal with that reality throughout the war in Ukraine, during other aggressions by Russia, during other moves that are against the national interests of the United States that we’ve seen from this president of the Russian Federation. And we continued to deal with them, but that reality doesn’t mean that this election wasn’t something that met any criteria,” Sullivan added.
On March 18, the Russian Central Election Commission announced that it had processed 100% of all voting protocols in the presidential elections. According to the voting results, Vladimir Putin scored 87.28%.
Independent observers and experts assess the elections as non-free and non-competitive. Putin, who has ruled Russia since 2000, was running for a fifth term. All candidates from non-parliamentary parties and self-nominated candidates who collected signatures were refused registration by the Central Election Commission
Voting in the presidential elections took place on March 15-17 in Russia and in the territories of Ukraine occupied by Moscow.
Read also: Set fire, zelenka and “return the husband” instead of a tick for Putin: actions of the wives of Russian soldiers in the elections
The European Union declared its non-recognition of the electoral procedure organized by Russia in the occupied Ukrainian territories. The EU statement says that the alliance “strongly condemns” the holding of “so-called elections” in Crimea, as well as in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. The EU called the holding of elections in these territories “a clear violation of international law by Russia.”