Kalniete: The Russian regime must be completely isolated politically and diplomatically

The European Parliament will vote on Thursday, 8 October, on a resolution recognising the Russian State Duma elections as undemocratic, strongly condemning them and calling for the political and diplomatic isolation of the Russian regime for as long as necessary. The resolution calls for representatives of the regime to be excluded from international forums as well as for any normalisation of Russia’s participation in international sporting and cultural events to be prevented.

The preparation of the EPP group's initiated resolution was led by Sandra Kalniete MEP, who is the Parliament’s lead rapporteur on Russia. Sandra Kalniete: “Putin’s dictatorship has held the most repressive State Duma elections in history. They can hardly even be called elections, as they fail to meet the most basic democratic standards – political opposition has been banned, protests have been criminalised, the media and propaganda are completely controlled, voter turnout figures have been falsified, ‘dead souls’ appear on the lists of voters who have cast ballots, and there is no longer any independent international election monitoring.”

During the European Parliament debate, Sandra Kalniete called on journalists and international institutions not to use electoral terminology to describe what took place in the occupied Ukrainian territories in connection with the elections. “‘Elections’ organised by an occupying power in territory seized by force constitute a violation of international human rights law and Ukraine’s sovereignty. Therefore, the European Parliament must not recognise the newly elected State Duma as a legitimate representative body or legislative institution of the Russian Federation. I call on the European Council and the Member States not to recognise the legitimacy of the newly elected State Duma,” the MEP stressed.

Sandra Kalniete reminded MEPs that another mobilisation has begun in Russia and that attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure have intensified, with the aim of breaking the Ukrainian people during the most devastating winter of this war. “One of Russia’s main propaganda newspapers, Moskovskiy Komsomolets, has admitted: ‘Putin won a new national referendum on support for the war.’ We in the European Union must be ready to increase our support for Ukraine, we must be ready to defend ourselves. Because the Kremlin will continue to threaten our democracy and peace,” the MEP said.

The resolution calls on EU Member States to impose sanctions on those responsible for political persecution and fabricated cases against representatives of Russian civil society, as well as on all those who organised or administered the elections, stood for election, claimed to represent the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, or acted there as “observers”.

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In carrying out the mandate entrusted to her as a MEP, Sandra Kalniete continues her work in the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), where she has been appointed lead rapporteur on Russia, as well as in the Committee on International Trade (INTA) and the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) as a substitute member. In the European Parliament’s new special committee on building societal resilience in the context of hybrid warfare, Sandra Kalniete has been appointed Vice-Chair.

Sandra Kalniete is the head of the Latvian delegation in the EPP Group. Within the EPP Group, Sandra Kalniete is Deputy Chair of the Foreign Affairs Working Group and works on issues on the agenda of the Committee on International Trade, including documents concerning EU financial and economic assistance to Ukraine. Sandra Kalniete also works in the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee and the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee, and continues her work in the European Parliament’s Historical Archives Group.