Debate: Russia's undemocratic presidential elections and their illegitimate extension to the occupied territories
Date: WEDNESDAY, 10 APRIL 2024
Speaker: Josep Borrell Fontelles
Language: EN

These elections were based on repressive laws, persecution of political opposition leaders, civil society representatives and journalists, including those opposing Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. These elections were marked with arbitrary detention and the terror caused by the poisoning and death of key figures like Alexei Navalny. They took place under a flood of disinformation, lack of access to independent media and strong propaganda supported by massive public funds for many years. So to call that elections is an irony.  For the first time, Russian authorities decided not to invite observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. This is not only contrary to Russia’s own international commitment, but has also denied Russia’s voters and institutions the transparency and independent assessment of these elections. In an autocracy like Russia, where freedom of information and checks and balances just don’t exist, official electoral figures need to be assessed against the full electoral context, and the fact is that all the above abusive measures guaranteed Putin an electoral process free from genuine political competence and deprived Russian citizens of their right to stand in the elections and make a free and informed political choice with their vote.  That’s why, on behalf of the European Union, I want to reiterate here that I strongly condemn, as we have done many times, the illegitimate elections that Russia has organised in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, and as the European Union High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy I have never shied away from bringing our message to Putin’s regime, to uphold the rights of all Russian political leaders and activists, civil society representatives, human rights defenders and independent media, to firmly condemn the attempted illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories and now Russia’s full scale war of aggression against Ukraine.  The European Union has demonstrated, and will keep demonstrating, that any continued internal repression and external aggression by Putin’s regime does have negative consequences. Russia’s regime underestimated the resilience and unity of Europeans. We have demonstrated that our unity is unbreakable and that despite Russia’s attempt to interfere in our democracies – as I am sure they will try to do again in the next European elections – and no matter how much they invest in disinformation and manipulation of information, and even trying to pay or maybe paying a few European Union politicians to spread Russia’s propaganda. This is despicable, not only illegal, and I welcome that our strong democratic institutions are already taking measures to investigate and condemn these acts.  I want to praise the strong political stand of this Parliament, which has never hesitated to support the unprecedented measures that the European Union has taken to respond to both the internal and international aggression by the Russian regime.  As Members of this Parliament know very well, we have imposed by unanimity of all Member States 13 sanctions to respond to Russia’s aggression and invasion of Ukraine, and following Navalny’s death, we imposed sanctions against 33 persons and two entities under the human rights sanctions regime – by the way, a regime that I proposed to create in my first Foreign Affairs Council as High Representative, and which now we have in order to fight against human rights violators.  Now we have a new Russia-specific sanctions regime, which is under discussion by Member States, and I hope it will be approved swiftly as well. Russia’s economy and their war machinery has been considerably weakened by our sanctions, and in time the effect of these sanctions will be increasingly evident as the volume and quality of investment deteriorate and Russia is being deprived of the advanced technologies needed to support its war and its growth.  We expose Russia’s propaganda, disinformation and interference and information manipulation orchestrated by Putin’s regime. I invite all of you to watch and share the EU versus disinformation website and its social media, counting to continue raising awareness on this threat.  We have cut our dependency on Russian gas. The value of European Union imports from Russia fell by 82 % between February 2022 and December 2023. An 82 % decrease means almost vanishing. We have reduced our dependency on Russian gas imports from 40 % of our total imports in 2021 to 15 % in 2023, and with our sanctions we have not only successfully diversified away from Russian fossil fuels, but curtailed Russia’s ability to weaponize its energy supplies, cut major revenue streams of the Kremlin and supported lower energy prices in Europe after the big boost over the last summer.  Honourable Members, all that is okay, well done, but we have to continue doing more and quicker. We have to continue supporting Russian independent media, civil society and human rights activists inside and outside Russia. We have to support Russian NGOs and human rights defenders. They deserve to receive our support, and we assist Russian-language independent media and journalists.  The European Union institutions and its Member States have already provided Ukraine with the quite big figure of EUR 96 billion of support. We are reaching the EUR 100 billion of support to Ukraine, and inside this figure 31 billion are military support. In addition to that, there is the macro-financial, humanitarian and other kinds of support. Some may say, ‘oh, it is very expensive to support Ukraine’, but not to support Ukraine and let Ukraine fall in front of the Russian aggression will be much more expensive for us and for the generations to come, because Russia would become a bigger threat to our security and freedom. Yes, we have to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, putting into action all our capacities – financial and military.  Honourable Members, this is a good occasion to commit on continuing to uphold the human rights of all Russians, because we have nothing against the Russian people. Neither us nor the Ukrainians are in war with the Russian people. They are just defending from a regime that uses war in order to change their political system and to cancel their independency and sovereignty, and we are supporting them and offering unwavering support to Ukraine, not just because it is our neighbour but because it is our partner – one of the most important partners and now a candidate to become a member of the European Union – and its independency, its sovereignty, its territorial integrity is also part of our capacity to continue living in freedom.  So please support the action taken by the European Institutions and Member States to continue supporting Ukraine and make clear that the last elections in Russia have not been either free or fair.