Russia-Ukraine war live: west criticises Putinâs election win as âanother breach of international lawâ | Ukraine
Western leaders denounce Putinâs 'illegitimate' election win
Western leaders have denounced what they have described as a sham Russian election, in which Vladimir Putin won a fifth term as Russian president by a landslide of about 87%, according to exit polls.
Ukraineâs president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, dismissed the result as illegitimate.
âEveryone in the world understands that this person, like many others throughout history, has become sick with power and will stop at nothing to rule forever,â he said.
âThere is no evil he would not do to maintain his personal power. And no one in the world would have been safeguarded from this.â
The US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said: âThe elections are obviously not free nor fair given how Mr Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him.â
The UKâs foreign secretary, David Cameron, said the âillegalâ elections featured âa lack of choice for voters and no independent OSCE monitoringâ, adding: âThis is not what free and fair elections look like.â
Italyâs foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said the âelections were neither free nor fairâ.
The Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky, meanwhile, called the election a âfarce and parodyâ. He said: âThis was the Russian presidential election that showed how this regime suppresses civil society, independent media, opposition.â
Some of Russiaâs allies, on the other hand, have congratulated Putin on his victory and said they hope friendly relations between their countries continue.
Beijing congratulated the Russian president, saying âChina and Russia are each otherâs largest neighbours and comprehensive strategic cooperative partners in the new eraâ.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said President Xi Jinping and Putin âwill continue to maintain close exchanges, lead the two countries to continue to uphold longstanding good-neighbourly friendship, deepen comprehensive strategic coordinationâ.
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said: âThe Serb people welcomed with joy the victory of President Putin for they see in him a great statesman and a friend on whom we can always count and who will watch over our people.â
Venezuelaâs president, Nicolas Maduro, said: âOur older brother has triumphed, which bodes well for the worldâ.
Key events
Xi Jinping congratulates Putin on his election victory
Chinaâs president, Xi Jinping, has congratulated Vladimir Putin on winning another term as Russiaâs president and said China was set to maintain close communication with Russia to promote their partnership, according to Chinese state media.
âYour re-election is a full demonstration of the support of the Russian people for you,â Xi was quoted as saying by Xinhua News.
âI believe that under your leadership, Russia will certainly be able to achieve greater achievements in national development and construction.â
China has strengthened its ties with Russia over the past few years, with the two countries having declared a âno limitsâ partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing just days before he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
âChina attaches great importance to the development of China-Russia relations and stands ready to maintain close communication with Russia to promote the sustained, healthy, stable and in-depth development of the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership,â Xi added.
It has been reported that China and Russia are preparing âseveral meetingsâ between Xi and Putin this year.
More than a dozen European Council members have said that the EU must increase its security and defensive capabilities in the face of Russiaâs full scale invasion of Ukraine.
Finland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Sweden, were the signatories to the joint letter, which stresses the importance of the EUâs defence industry to wider European security.
The letter reads:
Russiaâs illegal war of aggression against Ukraine has brought rapid, profound and long- lasting changes to the European security environment.
We must continue to provide strong political, economic and military support to Ukraine for as long as necessary and the EU must increase its strength and capabilities in security and defence.
In the coming months, we will be setting the EUâs future strategic priorities amongst which, the security and defence sector will be one of the main issues.
The signatories say the European Investment Bank (EIB), which functions as a lending arm to the EU and plays a key role in investment financing in Europe, needs to be empowered to invest in defence-related initiatives beyond existing dual-use projects.
âThis would mean discussing and re- evaluating current definitions of dual-use projects and the list of excluded activities as well as reconsidering its defence industry lending policy and other restrictive elements,â the letter reads.
âWe stress the importance of discussing this matter in a manner, which takes into account the impact on EIBâs risk profile and that safeguards EIBs financing basis.â
Ukraine has collected pretrial information on over 128,000 victims of war crimes, Veronika Plotnikova, the head of the coordinating centre for support of victims and witnesses of the prosecutor generalâs office, has said.
War crimes include acts such as deliberate attacks on civilians, attacks on cultural sites or medical institutions, torture and deportations.
She said:
The Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations has recorded information on more than 128,000 victims of war crimes, and the number is growing every day of the war.
We see our function as being a bridge between the victims and those who provide help.
We are creating an ecosystem of support because no government body, no organisation can provide for so many victims.
Here is a video of Vladimir Putinâs election victory speech, in which he vowed to prioritise what he called Russiaâs âspecial military operationâ in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin faced no meaningful contest after the authorities barred two candidates who had voiced their opposition to Russiaâs full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The re-election of Vladimir Putin as Russian president took place in a context of repression within civil society and the conditions for a free and democratic election were not respected, the French foreign ministry has said.
The ministry also praised in the statement the courage of âthe many Russian citizens who peacefully protested against this attack on their fundamental political rightsâ.
Thousands of people turned up at polling stations in Russia and capitals across the world on Sunday to take part in what the anti-Kremlin opposition said was a peaceful but symbolic protest against Putinâs re-election.
In an action called ânoon against Putinâ, Russians who opposed the leader went to their local polling station at midday to either spoil their ballot paper or to vote for one of the three candidates standing against Putin.
The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle estimated that more than 2,000 voters turned up for the midday protest outside the Russian embassy in Berlin.
Others had vowed to write the name of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died last month in an Arctic prison, on their voting slip and some visited Navalnyâs grave in Moscow to symbolically cast their vote for him.
Western leaders denounce Putinâs 'illegitimate' election win
Western leaders have denounced what they have described as a sham Russian election, in which Vladimir Putin won a fifth term as Russian president by a landslide of about 87%, according to exit polls.
Ukraineâs president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, dismissed the result as illegitimate.
âEveryone in the world understands that this person, like many others throughout history, has become sick with power and will stop at nothing to rule forever,â he said.
âThere is no evil he would not do to maintain his personal power. And no one in the world would have been safeguarded from this.â
The US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said: âThe elections are obviously not free nor fair given how Mr Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him.â
The UKâs foreign secretary, David Cameron, said the âillegalâ elections featured âa lack of choice for voters and no independent OSCE monitoringâ, adding: âThis is not what free and fair elections look like.â
Italyâs foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said the âelections were neither free nor fairâ.
The Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky, meanwhile, called the election a âfarce and parodyâ. He said: âThis was the Russian presidential election that showed how this regime suppresses civil society, independent media, opposition.â
Some of Russiaâs allies, on the other hand, have congratulated Putin on his victory and said they hope friendly relations between their countries continue.
Beijing congratulated the Russian president, saying âChina and Russia are each otherâs largest neighbours and comprehensive strategic cooperative partners in the new eraâ.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said President Xi Jinping and Putin âwill continue to maintain close exchanges, lead the two countries to continue to uphold longstanding good-neighbourly friendship, deepen comprehensive strategic coordinationâ.
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said: âThe Serb people welcomed with joy the victory of President Putin for they see in him a great statesman and a friend on whom we can always count and who will watch over our people.â
Venezuelaâs president, Nicolas Maduro, said: âOur older brother has triumphed, which bodes well for the worldâ.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardianâs live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin claimed a landslide victory and a fifth term in Russiaâs presidential election, with the Kremlinâs electoral machine boosting his share of the vote and turnout to near farcical levels.
With 99 percent of polling stations having submitted results, Putin had secured 87.33 percent of all votes cast, official election data showed Monday, according to state news agency RIA.
Western authorities have criticised Russiaâs election as being neither free nor fair. Thousands pf people in Russia and around the world protested against his deepening dictatorship during the course of the election.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in an address on Sunday evening, said Putin had become âaddicted to powerâ.
âThis imitation of âelectionsâ has no legitimacy and cannot have any,â he said. âThis person must end up in the dock in The Hague. This is what we must ensure, anyone in the world who values life and decency.â
The German foreign ministry wrote in a post on X that the âpseudo-election in Russia is neither free nor fair, the result will surprise nobody. Putinâs rule is authoritarian, he relies on censorship, repression & violence. The âelectionâ in the occupied territories of Ukraine is null and void & another breach of international law.â
The UKâs foreign secretary, David Cameron, meanwhile, criticised the vote, saying âthis is not what free and fair elections look likeâ, while the Polish foreign ministry said that itâs âimpossible to make a free, democratic choiceâ in the Russian election.
We will bring you more reaction to Putinâs election victory shortly. In other key developments:
The war in Ukraine was front and centre in his victory speech, as Putin claimed he was securing the border from recent raids by pro-Ukrainian military units and said that his main tasks as president would be the war in Ukraine, âstrengthening defence capacity and the militaryâ. Asked about the potential for a direct conflict with Nato, he said: âI think that everything is possible in the modern world ⦠everyone understands that this would be one step from a full-scale third world war. I donât think that anyone is interested in that.â
Speaking in central Moscow after early results indicated he had won Russiaâs presidential election in a landslide, Putin said unnamed people made an offer to release Alexei Navalny, the late Russian opposition leader, in a swap deal with the west a few days before he died. âThe person who spoke to me hadnât finished his sentence, and I said I agree. But, unfortunately, what happened, happened,â Putin said. It was the first time the Russian president had commented on Navalny since his death, which he called a âsad eventâ.
The Russian embassy in the US will send Washington a diplomatic note on Monday protesting against the actions of the secret service during Russiaâs presidential election on Sunday, Tass state news agency reported. Citing Russiaâs ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, Tass reported that secret service officers âallowed blocking the entrance to the Russian embassy and creating obstacles for Russian citizens who came to voteâ.
China will consider taking part in a peace conference aimed at ending the war in Ukraine which neutral Switzerland plans to host in the coming months, the Asian countryâs ambassador to Berne was quoted as saying on Monday. Wang Shihting, Chinaâs ambassador to Switzerland, said in an interview with the Neue Zuercher Zeitung that all parties should work to end the war. The Swiss government has said it aims to hold the peace conference by this summer after the idea was floated in January.
Ukraineâs air defence systems destroyed 17 out of 22 Russia-launched drones overnight, Ukraineâs air force has said. The air force wrote on Telegram that in addition to the attack drones, Russia also launched seven missiles at Ukraine.
Ukraine reported dozens of attacks by Russia near their shared border on Sunday, with more than 60 shelling incidents in the district of Sumy in which one person was killed. Earlier on Sunday one man was killed and at least eight people were wounded in a Russian missile attack on theBlack Sea port city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian officials said.
A drone strike at a military installation in Moldovaâs breakaway republic of Transnistria on Sunday destroyed a helicopter and ignited a fire, authorities in the pro-Russia region said, blaming the strike on Ukraine. However, Moldovaâs Bureau for Reintegration Policies said in a statement that after examining video footage, they âdo not confirm any attackâ on Transnistria and called it âan attempt to cause fear and panic in the regionâ. It added that the military equipment destroyed in the footage, which appeared across social media, âhas not worked for several yearsâ.