Ukraine Condemns Russian State Duma Elections in Occupied Territories as a “Farce”

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) issued a statement on September 18 rejecting the legitimacy of Russia’s State Duma  elections currently taking place in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.

Voting is scheduled from September 18 to 20 across the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, as well as in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol.

It was previously reported that, to manufacture international legitimacy for its State Duma elections, Moscow bypassed established monitoring bodies like the OSCE  in favor of foreign political figures, bloggers, and activists. Russian state media presents these individuals as independent “international observers.”

Many, such as the EU-sanctioned commentator Xavier Moreau and British blogger Vanessa Beeley, have previously endorsed illegal Russian votes in occupied Ukrainian territories. Utilizing foreign nationals allows the Kremlin to project external democratic validation for its electoral process.

According to Ukraine’s MFA, the proceedings do not alter the internationally recognized status of the regions and fail to grant Moscow any sovereign rights. The ministry cautioned that integrating representatives from these regions into the Russian parliament undermines the legitimacy of the entire State Duma.

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“This is a farce by the occupying state that has nothing to do with democratic elections and creates no legal basis for extending Russia’s jurisdiction to any part of Ukraine’s territory,” the ministry stated.

The foreign ministry urged the international community to reject the vote and warned foreign entities that participating as observers would result in legal consequences.

“Any 'elections' in modern Russia are merely a farce,” the statement read. “After more than a quarter of a century of Putin’s rule, democracy, freedom of speech, pluralism of political parties, and any respect for basic civil liberties are absent in this country”.

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Kyiv reiterated that the only internationally recognized vote regarding the territories remains the October 2022 UN General Assembly resolution, where 143 member states formally rejected Russia’s occupation.

Russia has recently opened early parliamentary voting in temporarliy occupied areas of the Donetsk region, dispatching mobile polling teams to residents' homes alongside armed servicemen and police. According to published footage, election officials collected ballots outside rural houses under the supervision of Russian soldiers and Central Electoral Commission members.

While Moscow claims the early voting measures are necessary for safety under martial law, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has warned that organizing the staged elections constitutes a criminal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

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