A member of an electoral commission fills in a document before giving a ballot to a voter at a mobile polling station during local elections held by the Russian-installed authorities in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the city of Mariupol, Russian-controlled Ukraine, August 31, 2023.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
Kyiv-condemned local elections in Moscow-occupied Ukrainian territories opened Thursday, Russian media reported.
Moscow controls around one-fifth of neighbouring Ukraine’s territory: the Crimea peninsula it annexed in 2014 and parts of the Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Voting was due to take place on September 10 as part of polls held in several Russian regions to elect governors, local parliaments and municipal councils.
But occupation authorities in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia organised early elections from Thursday, while voting in Kherson and Lugansk will open on Saturday.
No real opposition is standing as the authorities lead a crackdown on critical voices that intensified after the conflict in Ukraine began in February last year, with leading figures in jail or exile.
In September 2022, Russia annexed the Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions despite not fully controlling any of them following referendums that Kyiv and its Western allies have branded as shams.
Fighting in those areas is still raging as Ukraine pushes a counteroffensive launched in June along a vast front of almost 1,000 kilometres (620 miles).
After weeks of grinding combat, Kyiv is hoping for a major breakthrough in the Zaporizhzhia region after recapturing the village of Robotyne this week.