By Francesca Hangeior
Britain’s foreign minister David Cameron on Monday said the result of the Russian elections showed “the depth of repression” under President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin praised Putin’s landslide re-election for a fifth term in office as “eloquent confirmation” of the people’s support.
But Cameron, who on Sunday evening said the election was neither free nor fair, dismissed the poll outcome as undemocratic.
“These Russian elections starkly underline the depth of repression under President Putin’s regime, which seeks to silence any opposition to his illegal war (in Ukraine),” he said in a statement.
“Putin removes his political opponents, controls the media, and then crowns himself the winner. This is not democracy,” he added.
The Kremlin has presented the weekend election — marred by ballot spoilers and Ukrainian bombardments of border regions — as proof Russians back Putin’s assault on Ukraine.
Cameron also cited the death of Putin’s main political rival Alexei Navalny as evidence of the extent of Putin’s repression.
“The death of Alexei Navalny just weeks before the election was a tragic reminder of the severity of political repression in Russia today.”
Russia should “immediately release all political prisoners”, including British-Russian dual-national Vladimir Kara-Murza, he added.
Opposition politician Kara-Murza, 42, was jailed last April for 25 years — the harshest sentence so far for speaking out against the war in Ukraine.
He was charged with “treason” after using a speech in the United States to say Russia had committed “war crimes” against Ukraine.
Kara-Murza has serious health problems, which his lawyers say were due to two poisoning attempts orchestrated by Russia’s FSB security service in 2015 and 2017.