Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has applauded Russian President Vladimir Putin for his re-election for another six-year term, while the West slammed the results as rigged.
On Sunday, the 71-year-old Putin won a fifth term as Russian president in what, according to official results, was a landslide, taking more than 87 percent of votes.
Many Western countries including the United States, the UK and Germany strongly denounced the results of the Russian presidential election—which was held amid a crackdown on dissent and excluded all candidates opposed to the war in Ukraine—as neither free nor fair.
A handful of other leaders joined Min Aung Hlaing in congratulating Putin on his victory. Among them were Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, according to Russian media reports.
According to Lebanon-based Al Mayadeen news, Min Aung Hlaing said in his congratulatory message that Putin’s victory indicates he has the support of the Russian people.
While the Myanmar military junta has not yet officially released Min Aung Hlaing’s message of congratulations, regime-controlled newspapers published reports uncritically describing Putin’s re-election as a landslide victory.
Min Aung Hlaing is himself planning to hold an election—already dismissed by many international observers as a sham vote designed to maintain and provide a veneer of legitimacy for his grip on power—while continuing to arrest and persecute dissidents and members of the country’s most popular party, the National League for Democracy, much of whose leadership has been locked up.
The junta chief once praised Putin as “a leader of the world” and insisted the architect of the Ukraine invasion had brought “stability” to the international arena.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday dismissed the Russian election as illegitimate.
“Everyone in the world understands that this person, like many others
throughout history, has become sick with power and will stop at nothing to rule
forever,” he tweeted.
