‘A complete sham’: European Parliament condemns Russia’s September elections and refuses to recognize its new lower house as legitimate

Filed 1h ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Diplomatic Security Service from Washington, D.C., United St · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

The European Parliament adopted a resolution, passing 482 to 41 with 39 abstentions, rejecting the results of Russia's State Duma elections as a ‘sham’ held amid fear and without genuine opposition candidates, free media, or credible observers. Lawmakers said critics of Russian authorities have been imprisoned, killed, or exiled, and called on EU states to cut official contacts with Russian legislators and oppose normalizing Russia's return to international sporting and cultural events.

The resolution calls for continued support of Russian opposition forces and sets conditions for any return to normal EU-Russia relations, including restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity, release of prisoners of war, and reparations. Notable no votes came from lawmakers with documented ties to Russian officials or institutions, including Germany's Petr Bystron, Slovakia's Ľuboš Blaha, and the Czech Republic's Ondřej Dostál.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A vote of 482 to 41 is about as close as European politics gets to unanimous, and the names in that small minority column come with their own paper trail of meetings in Moscow, which saves everyone the trouble of guessing why they voted the way they did. Declaring an election illegitimate changes nothing on the ground in Russia, but it does put every government on record, and records are the thing autocracies hate most. Whether it moves Moscow an inch is a different question from whether it was the right thing to say out loud.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Hamster March · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0