Russia includes occupied Ukrainian regions in parliamentary vote for first time
Russia's parliamentary election has, for the first time, included residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claimed to annex after the start of its full-scale invasion more than four and a half years ago. The move is part of the Kremlin's effort to strengthen its hold over the territories, which Russia says have more than 3.5 million voters.
Officials in Kyiv denounced the voting as illegal and urged foreign governments and international organisations not to recognise it. Ukrainian human rights groups also called on residents in the Russian-held territories to stay away from the polls, while activists said people were being pressured and coerced into taking part.
Voting across Russia began on Friday and will continue until Sunday, but polling in the annexed parts of Ukraine and in some areas on the Russian side of the border has been under way since the end of last month. Officials cited security reasons for the extended voting period. The Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were annexed by Russia in September 2022 despite not being fully under Moscow's control, and the move has not been recognised internationally. Voting is also taking place in Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.
At one polling station in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region, voters were seen dropping ballots into a box while an armed Russian soldier stood nearby. In a speech on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said voting in those regions for the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, was significant because residents there would be voting for the Duma "for the first time since their reunification with Russia". He also noted that Russian soldiers involved in the fighting would vote. Describing the broader message of the election, Putin said, "Your choice and resolve will once again demonstrate that millions of people stand behind our fighters, that we are a united people, bound by shared values, historical memory, and love for the Motherland and that nobody can divide or intimidate us, undermine our statehood and political system."
Kyiv said participation in organising the vote could carry criminal liability. A coalition of nine Ukrainian human rights groups said, "We urge residents of the temporarily occupied territories, above all, to protect their lives and health and to look after their own safety." The coalition added, "Holding Russian elections in the temporarily occupied territories is an attempt to use the electoral process to legitimise the Russian occupation and the attempted annexation of Ukrainian territories." European Commission spokesperson Christian Wigand said the voting in the Russian-held regions represented "another blatant violation of international law. The European Union does not, and will never recognise either the holding of these, so-called elections, sham elections, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine or their results".
Violeta Artemchuk, coordinator of the Donbas SOS human rights group, said local election commission members were going door to door with Russian troops and security agents to force people to vote. She said Moscow-appointed authorities were threatening public sector workers with dismissal if they did not vote and were linking pensions and other social payments to participation. "For instance, if a person with a disability or a pensioner relies on social assistance and does not take part in the voting, 'they could be added to a list of individuals deemed disloyal' to the so-called authorities and subsequently deprived of their benefits or humanitarian assistance," she said. Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst at the Kyiv-based Penta Center, said, "elections held at gunpoint are a farce". He added, "The very fact that voting takes place amid endless shelling and bombing reflects the Kremlin's attitude toward the people and the electoral process in the occupied territories," and said, "It's nothing short of a mockery. Any electoral procedures conducted by the Russian occupation authorities have nothing to do with democracy."
The election, the first to the State Duma during the war, is being presented by Moscow as a show of support in the occupied territories, but Ukraine, rights groups and the European Union have rejected it as illegal and coercive, with Kyiv warning against any role in organising the vote.
