EU to impose sanctions for holding elections in Russian-occupied regions: Kallas

European foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday the bloc will place sanctions on those who organized and stood as candidates in sham elections in Russian-occupied regions in Ukraine, adding that the EU will “never recognise” the results, TVP World reports.

Vladimir Putin's United Russia party is set to win his country’s first wartime parliamentary election, a vote held from September 18 to 20 with virtually no genuine opposition and amid efforts by the Kremlin to project continued public support for the war in Ukraine.

“Those involved in organising these sham elections or standing as candidates in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, as well as those responsible for undermining the possibility of free and fair elections inside Russia, will be sanctioned,” Kallas said in a statement.

She added that the European Union "does not and will never recognise either the holding of these so-called 'elections' in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine or their results.”