Britain’s foreign minister, David Cameron, said on Monday that the Russian election results really highlight how oppressive things are under President Vladimir Putin’s rule.
The Kremlin was proud of Putin’s big win for a fifth term as a strong sign of people supporting him. But Cameron, who had already stated on Sunday evening that the election wasn’t free or fair, called the election results undemocratic.
He said, “These Russian elections really show how much repression there is under President Putin, who tries to shut up anyone against his illegal war in Ukraine.”
“Putin gets rid of anyone who opposes him, controls the media, and then declares himself the winner. This isn’t what democracy looks like,” he further added.
The Kremlin argued that the election, even though it had issues like spoiled ballots and attacks from Ukraine, proved that Russians support Putin’s actions in Ukraine.
David Cameron also brought up the death of Putin’s main rival, Alexei Navalny, as proof of how repressive Putin’s rule is.
“The death of Alexei Navalny just before the election was a sad reminder of how bad political repression is in Russia today.”
He said Russia should “let go of all political prisoners right away,” including Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has both British and Russian citizenship.
Kara-Murza, a 42-year-old opposition politician, was sentenced last April to 25 years in jail – the strictest punishment yet for criticizing the war in Ukraine.
He was accused of “treason” for saying in a speech in the United States that Russia had committed “war crimes” in Ukraine.
Kara-Murza has severe health issues, which his lawyers claim were caused by two poisoning attempts by Russia’s FSB security service in 2015 and 2017.