2023-06-16 07:22:44
In a new indication of Moscow’s progress in consolidating its annexation of the four Ukrainian regions, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia, in which referendums to join Russia were held in late September 2022, and whose results Kiev refused to recognize.
The Russian Central Election Commission decided, in its meeting Thursday, to hold local and municipal elections in the republics of Luhansk and Donetsk and Zaporizhia and Kherson regions on the next unified polling day scheduled for September 10 of this year.
Russia’s Tass news agency quoted the head of the Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, as saying that the Russian Defense Ministry and the Federal Security Service had decided that the vote might be held in September.
What then?
Observers believe that this step, which Kiev will reject, may add fuel to the fire of the war that has been raging for regarding a year and a half between Russia and Ukraine, amid the absence of signs of any diplomatic and peaceful solutions and initiatives to the war that exhausted the entire world, and its fragments affected its food and energy security, as well as warnings that it might cause dragging him into a devastating nuclear conflict.
While questions arise regarding how it is organized in the areas that Kiev recovered, as is the case, for example, with the strategic city of Kherson in the south of the country.
Rami Al-Qalyubi, a professor at the Moscow Higher School of Economics, said in an interview with Sky News Arabia:
- After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, it was immediately integrated into Russian political life, but the matter was different at that time with the Donetsk and Luhansk republics in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow supported during that same year, but without officially recognizing their independence from Ukraine.
- Russia practiced towards the two republics something like creeping annexation, as it facilitated, for example, the procedures for granting Russian citizenship to their residents and recognized the academic certificates issued in them, as well as opening Russian markets to their products.
- But last September, Russia moved from the stage of creeping annexation towards full-fledged annexation, which included, in addition to the republics of Donbass, the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhia in southern Ukraine, and these four administrative entities were included in the list of Russian federal entities according to the constitution, and they became treated like the rest of the Russian regions.
- Thus, it is covered by the unified voting day in the various regions and republics of the country, which includes the election of mayors, mayors, and local councils in September of each year, and this participation of the four regions in it means its practical integration into Russian political life completely and successfully.
- The biggest problem is that these regions are constitutionally and politically part of Russia, but on the ground they are not completely under Russian control, as for example in some regions of Kherson province, which creates problems related to how elections are organized and the international legal status of those regions.
In turn, the Russian researcher in international relations, Lana Badfan, said in an interview with Sky News Arabia:
- This decision means that these regions have become completely Russian, and their inclusion in these elections reflects that Moscow is continuing to perpetuate the reality of annexing those four regions to the Russian Federation.
- However, the elections, in light of the war fronts raging, will undoubtedly take place in a difficult and dangerous security environment, which is not only limited to the four concerned regions, but also applies to some other Russian regions, such as the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, many of whose residents have been displaced in the border villages, especially, as a result of the bombing. And the Ukrainian targets for it.
- However, it is clear that the Russians are continuing to organize these elections, which will be prepared and paved for security in an attempt to ensure their smoothness, and that they are not affected by the climate of war and its repercussions as much as possible.
Russia announces elections in the areas it controls in Orkania
The four regions
The area of the Ukrainian lands that Russia controls and annexed is regarding 100,000 square kilometers, which constitutes regarding 20 percent of the total area of Ukraine, and the population of those areas under Russian control ranges between 5 to 7 million people, or regarding 15 percent. of the country’s total population.
- Lugansk: Its area is more than 26.5 thousand square kilometers, and its population is regarding two and a quarter million people.
- Donetsk: Its area is 26.5 thousand square kilometers, and its population exceeds 4 million.
- Kherson: Its area is 28.5 thousand square kilometers and its population is regarding one million.
- Zaporizhya: Its area is 20 thousand square kilometers, and its population exceeds one and a half million.
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