Russia plans to hold illegal elections to the State Duma on 20 September in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Those taking part in the campaign include representatives of the occupation administrations and former members of illegal armed groups.
This is reported by Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service.
According to the intelligence service, the list of candidates from the occupied part of Donetsk region and their campaign statements is particularly telling.
In particular, United Russia candidate Oleksandr Hrydenko, who fought on Russia’s side and is a communications platoon commander in the illegal formation “Wild Division of Donbas”, proposes involving former combatants in work at schools, higher education institutions and youth centres as mentors, supervisors and coaches.
As the Foreign Intelligence Service notes, in this way the combat experience of participants in Russia’s aggression is planned to be used to indoctrinate children in the occupied territories.
Another participant in United Russia’s primaries, Danylo Lytvynenko, proposes in his election programme to grant property in the occupied territories the status of “ownerless” and create the possibility of transferring it free of charge to Russian citizens. This includes, in particular, the houses and flats of Ukrainians who were forced to leave their homes because of the Russian occupation.
Among the candidates are also Serhii Dobrovolskyi – head of the occupation youth structures and a former member of the illegal armed formation “Pyatnashka”; Yevhen Soboliev – a participant in the war against Ukraine and an employee of the occupation administration; Ivan Valov – a member of United Russia and a participant in the war against Ukraine; and Volodymyr Bodachevskyi – secretary of the local United Russia branch in occupied Donetsk.
The Foreign Intelligence Service stresses that the illegal election campaign is part of Russia’s policy of integrating the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine into its own political and administrative space.
Ukraine does not recognise such elections or their results. Those involved in organising and conducting the illegal vote in the occupied territories will be held accountable under Ukrainian law.
- Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the “elections” to Russia’s State Duma on 18–20 September a farce. The minister also recalled that the so-called “elections” are also planned in the occupied territories of Ukraine.