Estonia's Foreign Minister: Russia's Duma vote is 'not an election'
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said Russia's upcoming State Duma elections cannot be seen as a genuine expression of citizens' will, since the Kremlin fully controls the process. He called it a Kremlin-staged performance.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said on social platform X that the upcoming Russian State Duma elections should not be regarded as a real expression of the will of Russian citizens.
Tsahkna shared an analytical publication from the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) about the upcoming Russian vote, whose headline stressed that the results will effectively be decided in the Kremlin, adding his own comment.
'This is not an election'
The minister said the Kremlin decides who can run, controls the entire process, and that the outcome is determined before ballots are even counted. He described the vote as not an election but a Kremlin-controlled performance.
Meanwhile, EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius ironically congratulated Vladimir Putin on his stated wish to "remove the root causes" of the war.
It is also worth noting that elections are being held on September 6 in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, where for the first time a premier from the far-right Alternative for Germany party could potentially head the state government.
