Czech Foreign Ministry: Russian elections were “illegitimate farce”

The Russian presidential elections were neither transparent nor democratic, the Czech Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday, in response to Vladimir Putin’s reported landslide victory. The ministry criticized the fact that the elections were held in conditions of systematic suppression of Russian civil society, without independent media or any semblance of real opposition. Moreover, it pointed out that Russia also organized voting in the occupied territories of Ukraine, which it described as an “illegitimate farce” carried out with the intention to legitimize the results of its aggressive policy towards the neighbor state.