Russia-Ukraine war: Kyiv condemns ‘null and void’ Russia election plans for occupied territory

Ukraine has condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections next spring on occupied territory, declaring them “null and void” and pledging to prosecute any observers sent to monitor them.

Russia’s upper house set the country’s presidential election this week for next March, and chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko said residents in four occupied Ukrainian regions would be able to vote for the first time.

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

Russia claims to have annexed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions in the east and south of Ukraine during referenda last year dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a sham, but does not fully control any of them.

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

Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Friday he would run for president again, a move expected to keep him in power until at least 2030.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is travelling to the inauguration of Argentina’s president-elect, Javier Milei, Kyiv said on Saturday.

Mr Zelenskiy congratulated Mr Milei, a far-right populist who has challenged Argentina’s political establishment, on his victory, and both leaders spoke on the phone soon after Mr Milei’s election. Mr Zelenskiy then thanked Mr Milei for his “clear support for Ukraine”.

Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has warned Ukrainians were in “mortal danger” of being left to die if western countries did not continue their financial support.

She made the remarks a day after Republican senators in the US blocked a key aid bill that would have provided more than $60 billion (€55 billion) worth of support to Ukraine.

Four Ukrainian civilians were killed in strikes on residential areas overnight, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine said.

Overnight, four Ukrainian civilians were killed and seven others injured as a result of strikes on residential areas in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions, Gyunduz Mamedov wrote on X. – Agencies