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Politics360 outlets ran this3 min read

Five Countries Condemn Russian Elections in Occupied Ukraine

Joint statement calls the vote a 'sham' and a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty.

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

Published Updated
Rusijos rinkimai okupuotoje Donecko srityje

What this story says

  • Five countries, including the UK, Canada, and Australia, condemned Russia-organised elections in occupied parts of Ukraine.
  • The joint statement described the elections as a 'sham' and a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty.
  • The elections took place in Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
  • The UK's Foreign Office stated these elections are part of a wider system of occupation.

Who covered it

Left 39%(62)Centre 37%(61)Right 24%(38)

Percentages are shares of the 161 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 199 of the 360 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .

Trust

60/100

Craft

60/100

Hype

20/100

360 sources · methodology

Missing from the left

Only 62 of the 161 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated left.

A reader who follows the left would not have seen this. We report the absence rather than explain it: outlets choose what to cover for many reasons, and we have no evidence about which one applies here.

Five countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, have condemned elections organised by Russia in occupied Ukrainian territories. In a joint statement, these nations called the vote a 'sham' and a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and independence, as well as the UN Charter. The elections were held in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, specifically Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.

The UK's Foreign Office stated that these elections are part of a wider system of occupation, which includes the imposition of Russian administration, law, media, education, language, and citizenship, supported by coercion and repression. The statement also called for accountability for those involved in organising the election and reaffirmed support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders.

Election results

Preliminary results indicated that United Russia won 355 out of 450 seats in the Duma, the Russian lower house of parliament. This outcome would grant the party a super-majority, surpassing its previous record set in 2016.

Coverage comparison

What the coverage left out

None of the right-rated reports below mention the preliminary results showing United Russia winning 355 out of 450 seats in the Duma.

Tags:#Ukraine#Russia#Elections#InternationalLaw#Sovereignty

Coverage settled. We checked this 7 times and stopped on 26 Sept 2026, 21:15. The figures above are what it finished at.

How other outlets pictured it

Which photograph to run is each newsroom’s own choice. The leaning beside a name is that outlet’s published rating, not a claim that the pictures divide along it. Every picture is shown from the outlet’s own server and links to the article it ran in.

War threat to the UK - Putin's Russia
Daily MirrorLeft

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

62 rated outlets

  • The Daily Mirror, Punch Newspapers, Интерфакс-Украина, detector.media, and La Repubblica led on the condemnation of the elections by the UK and its allies. These outlets reported that the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway jointly stated the elections in occupied Ukrainian territories were a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and the UN Charter.
  • The Daily Mirror's full report stated that the elections were a 'sham' and a 'gross violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence'. This report also detailed that United Russia won 355 out of 450 seats, securing a super-majority. It mentioned enforced disappearances, detention, and torture of Ukrainian citizens.
  • abc News, The Toronto Star, Los Angeles Times, HuffPost, Zeit Online, npr, and Dnevni list Danas focused on the parliamentary election itself. These reports noted the election was Russia's first wartime parliamentary vote, with Kremlin dominance assured and little opposition to President Vladimir Putin's policies.

Centre

61 rated outlets

  • 15min.lt reported that five countries, including the UK, Australia, and Canada, condemned the elections, calling them part of a wider occupation system. Le Devoir noted that Canada and four other countries denounced the vote as a 'flagrant violation of the sovereignty and independence' of Ukraine.

Right

38 rated outlets

  • Right-rated reports from dagelijksestandaard.nl, Reformatorisch Dagblad, Anadolu Ajansı, and El Debate focused on the condemnation of the 'sham elections' in Ukrainian territories by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom. El Debate also mentioned Brussels rejecting the outcome due to an 'erosion of democracy'.

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover Five Countries Condemn Russian Elections in Occupied Ukraine?
Of the 161 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 39% are rated left, 37% are rated centre, 24% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 360. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
Is Five Countries Condemn Russian Elections in Occupied Ukraine left or right?
Neither side dominates it. Of the 161 rated outlets on this story, 39% are rated left, 37% are rated centre, 24% are rated right, and no side holds the 70% this site would want before calling a field one-sided. A story is not left or right in any case; the outlets that carried it are what carry ratings.
Is the coverage of Five Countries Condemn Russian Elections in Occupied Ukraine biased?
Five Countries Condemn Russian Elections in Occupied Ukraine is one event reported by 360 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
Which side is not reporting Five Countries Condemn Russian Elections in Occupied Ukraine?
When we first saw this story, outlets rated left had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
Which outlets covered Five Countries Condemn Russian Elections in Occupied Ukraine?
360 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
Which countries condemned the Russian elections in occupied Ukraine?
The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway jointly condemned the elections. They issued a statement calling the vote a 'sham' and a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty.
Where were the Russian elections held?
The elections were held in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. These include Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
What was the outcome of the elections in Russia's parliament?
Preliminary results showed that United Russia won 355 out of 450 seats in the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. This result would give the party a super-majority.

Read it at the source

373 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

Left

63
Show 55 more

Centre

62
Show 54 more

Right

42
Show 34 more

Not rated

206
Show 198 more

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

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