Russia is holding parliamentary elections on Sept. 17-19, and for the first time, residents of the Kremlin-occupied parts of Donbas will be taking part.
At stake are the votes of more than 600,000 people who were given Russian passports through a simplified procedure established by the Kremlin in 2019.
However, these aren’t eager to vote. As of the beginning of September only around 100,000 residents of occupied Donbas registered to vote through Russia’s government service portal Gosuslugi, according to The Eastern Human Rights Group.
Moscow-controlled militants organized 825 bus routes and 12 train routes to Russia’s neighboring Rostov region, so people can vote at special polling stations. There will be no lists at the stations — any holder of a Russian passport from Donbas can vote there.
In a video message, Denis Pushilin, the president of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said people traveling to cast their vote will enjoy simplified border controls. Travel by car or with Ukrainian passports will be restricted.
For many residents of occupied territories, participation in voting is mandatory. Denys Kazansky, a representative of Ukraine in the Trilateral Contact Group (the TCG), says that students and “state” employees are being forced to vote. If they refuse to, write an explanatory statement to authorities. Not wanting to vote is not considered a solid reason.
“If you are asked to vote remotely, it only means it must be done. No one asks for your consent or that of your classmates,” reads a text exchange between a student and the dean’s office of a university in occupied Donetsk, which Kazansky published Facebook page.
A student, who asked to stay anonymous for safety reasons, said that authorities don’t specify which party to vote for. However, the only campaigning on territory controlled by Moscow-sponsored militants is United Russia, the ruling party of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to the representative of certain districts of the Donetsk region in the TCG Sergiy Garmash, there are around 400 polling stations in occupied parts of Donbas. However, separatists call them “info centers”.
“Russia is acting very brazenly. They urge people to come to these ‘info centers’ for voting,” he said in an interview for Channel 5.
Read more: Associated Press: Parliamentary election unlikely to change Russia’s politics
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleksiy Makeev told news agency Interfax-Ukraine on Sept. 10 that Russia violates international law by holding the elections in Crimea.
Ukraine’s parliament Verkhovna Rada voted on Sept. 8 for a resolution urging other states, assemblies and international organizations to declare the elections in Crimea illegal.
The Ukrainian parliament also urges the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and Organization of Black Sea Economic Cooperation not to accept deputies whose election was linked to the voting in Crimea.
Putin’s spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov said on the same day that Russia won’t take into account Ukraine’s stance on the election in Crimea because “Crimea is a Russian territory now.”
Earlier the head of early parliamentary elections mission of OSCE Jan Petersen said in a comment to Interfax on Aug. 15 that the mission wouldn’t observe Russian parliamentary elections in Crimea.
Ukraine also urged the citizens of Crimea not to take part in the elections.
United Russia is likely to pick up the most seats in Parliament, followed by the Communist Party, the second-largest parliamentary faction that largely toes the governmental line. Opposition groups claim their candidates have been denied access to the ballot, jailed, intimidated or pushed into exile.
