MOSCOW, Sept 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russia claimed that the United Russia party, which staunchly backs President Vladimir Putin, had won local ballots in four Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia.
The Kremlin claimed to have annexed the eastern and southern territories last year despite not having full military control over them. The elections have been dismissed by Ukraine and its allies as a sham.
Data published by Moscow and proxy officials showed voters in the war-battered territories, where Ukraine is clawing back ground, had backed United Russia with more than 70 per cent of the ballot in each territory, state-run news agencies reported.
The polls also being held across Russia came ahead of presidential elections next year expected to prolong Putin’s rule until at least 2030.
His opponents are in exile or jail and Moscow has criminalised criticism of its conflict in Ukraine and detained thousands for speaking out.
Authorities set up mobile polling booths days ahead of the vote in the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, where Moscow said a polling station was attacked by a Ukrainian drone.
In Donetsk, which has been partially controlled by separatists since 2014, Kremlin-installed authorities said Ukrainian shelling had injured election officials.
Voting was also taking place in Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014.
Ukrainian security services said they had compiled a list of “collaborators” helping to organise the voting and vowed retribution.
In Moscow, which was also hosting a mayoral vote, there were few campaign posters.
Incumbant Sergei Sobyanin – a Siberian-born Kremlin loyalist in post since 2010 – won a “convincing” reelection, a senior election official said.
In his 13 years at the helm of Europe’s largest city, Sobyanin has presided over numerous mega-projects that have transformed Moscow’s skyline.
In 2013, he was almost defeated by anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny.
Navalny, who dismissed the vote from behind bars, was jailed in 2020 on old fraud charges his allies say were a pretext to end his political work.
Sobyanin beat out the grandson of a veteran politician and a little-known candidate from a new party dubbed “New People”.
In regions bordering Ukraine that have seen frequent attacks, voting was going ahead with additional security precautions.
Electoral commission chief Ella Pamfilova said voting had been postponed in Shebekino, a district of the Belgorod region that has been hit by shelling, “due to a regime of high alert”.
Observers say one of the few competitive races in Russia’s 11 time zones emerged in Siberia’s remote Khakassia, where governor Valentin Konovalov is seeking re-election. — NNN-AGENCIES
