Kyiv has strongly condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections in 2024 in occupied territories, according to Reuters.

Russian troops have occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts and also annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in 2014.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has warned the country would regard the elections as “null and void” and will prosecute any observers sent to monitor them.

Earlier, Russia’s upper house set the presidential election for spring 2024 and said residents in four Ukrainian regions would be able to vote for the first time. Russian leader Vladimir Putin announced he would run for president again.

The Foreign Ministry has stated that the election in Russia only serves as a tool to keep the Russian regime in power and called on the international community to impose sanctions on those involved in their organization.

Read also:

• “If the world gets tired, they will simply let us die,” Zelenska says
• How Ukraine aid became a hostage of the US border crisis
• UK Foreign Secretary to US: Blocking Ukraine aid would be “Christmas present” to Putin