Russian President Vladimir Putin is poised for another six-year term. Photo / AP
Russian President Vladimir Putin is poised for another six-year term. Photo / AP
Ukrainians living in regions illegally annexed by Russia are being coerced to vote in the presidential election of their wartime occupier, Vladimir Putin — an exercise denounced by Ukraine as an illegitimate effort by Moscow to tighten control over its neighbour.
Polls don’t open in Russia until Friday, but they are open in four annexed regions of Ukraine close to the front line, some of which are not fully in Putin’s control.
The election is taking place under highly distorted and restrictive conditions. Many Ukrainians fled these regions — or were deported by Russia — after Putin’s invasion two years ago, and there are reports of people being forced to vote at gunpoint. There are no international election observers in Ukraine.
A billboard in Russian-controlled Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, promoting the Russian presidential election. Photo / AP
The Russian government is prodding Ukrainians with billboards and posters to vote “for their president” and to “take part in the future of our country”. It is promoting the election with a V symbol in the colours of the Russian flag — a letter emblazoned on Russian tanks and a clear nod to Putin’s first name.
“The elections are an extension of military occupation and of the war itself ... rather than an exercise in the democratic franchise,” said Sam Greene, a director at the Centre for European Policy Analysis in Washington.
In addition to setting up polling stations, Russia has dispatched officials with ballot boxes to people’s homes, saying it is safer for them to vote on their doorsteps.
‘Test of loyalty’
The Kremlin views the voting in occupied regions of Ukraine as a “test of loyalty” for civilians and local elites, said Volodymyr Fesenko, the head of Penta, a political think tank.
In the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, said his city was a symbol of Russia’s “military nightmare” and of an “electoral process in ruins”. He said a woman “accompanied by two Chechen military men with machine guns” showed up at his neighbour’s apartment with a ballot box and made clear that voting was not optional.
There have been reports of Russian-installed authorities forcing people to vote, and threatening to withhold medical care or other social benefits from those who do not. More than two dozen Ukrainians who refused to vote have been arrested, according to human rights activists.
Analysts say the Kremlin is eager for a high turnout — in Russia and the occupied regions of Ukraine — to signify control, silence dissent and present Putin as a legitimate leader. The Institute for the Study of War said it expected the Kremlin and Russia-installed officials in Ukraine to “fabricate” a high turnout.
The Ukrainian governor of the Zaporozhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov, said that — based on publicly available lists — the Kremlin had brought more than half the election officials and activists into the region from Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is poised for another six-year term. Photo / AP
The Russia-installed governor of Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, said turnout in early voting was “better than expected” and lines were forming at polling stations.
In the eastern region of Luhansk, which has been partially occupied since 2014, some residents said they were going to vote for Putin, although several said they had no idea who else was on the ballot.
“I will vote for Putin because I don’t know anyone else,” said Veronica, a 30-year-old nurse.
Tatiana, a 20-year-old student, said of Putin: “I trust him so much that other candidates are no longer suitable for me.”
Associated Press is not identifying them by their full names because of concerns for their safety.
Pro-Ukrainian citizens deported
In a video address, Putin urged people in Ukraine’s occupied regions — and in Russia — to vote, telling them that “each of your votes is valuable and significant”.
It is unclear how many people live in the newly annexed regions of eastern Ukraine, where the Kremlin has been accused of resettling Russians. Britain’s Ministry of Defence estimated this week that a third of the pre-war Ukrainian population remains, and analysts said the lack of transparency makes it easy to manipulate the vote.
In February, the Russia-installed governor of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, Evgeny Balitsky, said he personally ordered the deportation of pro-Ukrainian citizens because “these were people who we could not convince and we have to deal with them more harshly”.
Balitsky said “a large number of families” were dropped off near the front line because some of them had insulted Russia’s flag, anthem and Putin.
In Mariupol, which was flattened by the Russian military early in the war, the population has dropped from just over 400,000 people to aboutd 200,000. Half the present population, according to Boychenko, the mayor, are not Ukrainian and include construction workers and labourers from remote Russian regions. The Kremlin, he said, is trying to repopulate Mariupol “to create a loyal majority out of poor settlers”.
At least 27 people have been arrested for refusing to vote in the occupied areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, according to Pavlo Lysianskyi of the Eastern Human Rights Group.
“The Kremlin is demonstratively increasing pressure on local residents,” Lysianskyi said.
There are also cases, he said, of authorities forcing people to write explanations of their refusal to vote that could become the basis for initiating criminal cases against them. That practice was also used in local Russian elections held in occupied Ukrainian regions in September.
