Denmark has refused to recognize the forthcoming results of Russia's upcoming parliamentary election in annexed Crimea, as requested by Ukraine, Radio Free Europe reports.
Russia's nationwide parliamentary elections on Sunday will be its first since the annexing of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Although the Russian government has de facto control over the peninsula, the U.N. does not recognize its local government as legitimate. Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko issued a plea to Western partners earlier this week not to recognize the result of Russia's elections.
Danish Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen said on Friday that his country is ready to comply and cast doubt over the fairness of the election as a whole.
"We do not recognize the election results on the territory illegally annexed Crimea," Jensen said. " We are talking about the occupation of part of Ukrainian territory," he added, but dodged a question about whether or not Denmark would refuse to recognize the vote in Russia across other regions too.
" We have a question to the fact that elections in Russia free and fair," he said. " But most importantly, the elections in the Crimea are unacceptable. Crimea is not part of Russia, Crimea is part of Ukraine."
Russia is set to elect four lawmakers to represent the constituency of Crimea, with ruling party United Russia supporting several figureheads of the annexation as candidates.
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