Russian authorities are holding local elections this weekend in occupied parts of Ukraine in an effort to tighten their grip on territories Moscow illegally annexed a year ago and still does not fully control.
The voting for Russian-installed legislatures in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions begins Friday and concludes Sunday. It has already been denounced by Kyiv and the West.
“The Russian authorities are trying hard to pretend that everything is going according to plan, everything is fine. And if everything is going according to plan, then the political process should go according to plan,” said Gallyamov, who worked as a speechwriter for Russian President Vladimir Putin when Putin served as prime minister.
For some residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, large swaths of which have been held by Russian-backed separatists since 2014, there is nothing unusual about the vote. “In most cases, we don’t know these Russian candidates, and we’re not even trying to figure it out,” said Konstantin, who currently lives in the Russian-held part of the Kherson region on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River.
Weeks after the referendums, Russian troops withdrew from the city of Kherson, the capital of the Kherson region, and areas around it, ceding them back to Ukraine. As a result, Moscow has maintained control of about 70% of the Kherson region. In the meantime, early voting is underway. Ivan Fyodorov, Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, a Russian-held city in the Zaporizhzhia region, told AP that local residents are effectively being forced to vote.Early in the war, Fyodorov was kidnapped by Russian troops and held in captivity. He moved to Ukrainian-controlled territory upon release.
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