Local elections kicked off in Russia this weekend in 79 regions, with voters casting their ballots for governors, regional legislatures, city and municipal councils.
Russian authorities are also holding local elections in the four regions of Ukraine that Moscow annexed illegally last year — the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia provinces.
Voting for federal and local legislators is also underway on the Crimean peninsula, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014.
Balloting in the occupied areas of Ukraine has been denounced by Kyiv and the West as a sham and a violation of international law.
In the majority of the Russian regions and in the occupied regions of Ukraine, polls opened on Friday and the voting lasts for three days, concluding Sunday. In other regions, voters can only cast their ballot on Sunday.
In over 20 Russian regions, including Moscow, online voting has been enacted, despite wide criticism by opposition figures who say it lacks transparency and could easily be rigged. It has also been made available in Crimea.
There are hardly any exciting races, notes political analyst Abbas Gallyamov, mainly because “the most important issue in Russian politics — the issue of war and peace — is not on the agenda at all.”
