UNITED NATIONS, March 16. /TASS/. Less than a third of UN member nations, 56 out of 193, signed a joint statement condemning the presidential election in Russia, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said.

"Throughout the week, Western nations have been twisting arms of all UN members to force them to join a statement condemning the election in Russia. Many complained about this to us. <…> In the long run, there were 56 of them. Out of the 193 UN members! These are those who have been sticking to their anti-Russian positions after the beginning of the special military operation," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

These countries include Austria, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Germany, Georgia, Israel, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the United States, Finland, France, Croatia, Montenegro, the Czech Republic, Chile, Switzerland, and Sweden.

Notably, the anti-Russian resolution of the UN General Assembly in April 2022 was supported by 143 countries, which, according to Polyansky, did it "in the heat of the moment, not having figured out what is happening."

"In general, the support for the [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky regime in the United Nations has shrunk to the collective West and its puppet satellites. They have nowhere to retreat. So, when you see the figures of any anti-Russian voting at the UN General Assembly, you can easily subtract 56 to see the number of those who managed to withstand the West’s arms twisting," Polyansky noted.

The Federation Council, the upper house of Russia’s parliament, officially designated March 17, 2024 as the day of the presidential election. The Central Election Commission (CEC) then announced that voting would take place over three days on March 15-17.

Four candidates are vying for the top office, namely New People party nominee Vladislav Davankov; self-nominated candidate and incumbent President Vladimir Putin; Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) nominee Leonid Slutsky; and Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) nominee Nikolay Kharitonov.