Today Muscovites are electing a mayor, but anyone looking for an election campaign will look in vain. There are hardly any posters in the center of the Russian capital, let alone party stands. In some corridors, however, there are notes calling for electronic voting. Instead there are flowers from the current mayor Sergey Sobyanin, who believes in his re-election and according to forecasts he should easily achieve this goal. Huge flower beds have been set up in front of Red Square. In many streets, passers-by now walk under arches with flowers planted on the right and left. The end of summer finds the street cafes full. There is no sign of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

No election campaign

Sobyanin is known for doing everything he could especially before the elections to make the capital more beautiful. Because there is now almost no demonstration and freedom of expression, but instead there are seas of flowers, new streets for walks and upgraded playgrounds in the wealthiest neighborhoods of the city. The 65-year-old mayor enjoys the popularity of many residents. But among critical Muscovites his actions are a source of ridicule and annoyance. The man from the Kremlin’s United Russia party likes to appear in public at the side of President Vladimir Putin.

But elections are not taking place today only in Moscow. Across Russia, regional governors are elected in a total of 22 regions and regional parliaments in 16 regions. More than a year and a half after the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Russian occupation force has also scheduled votes in the annexed regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson. Voting there already started at the end of August, but their results are not recognized internationally, just as was the case with the 2022 mock referendums on the annexation of the four territories last year to the Russian Federation, in violation of international law.

As then, the Ukrainian authorities assured that they will not punish people who “vote”, especially if they have to do it at gunpoint. But any active participation, such as working in local “election committees”, running for a post in the occupation service or any role as an “election observer” will be considered by Kiev as a serious criminal offence. And for the organization of fake elections by the Russian occupation administration in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, the Ukrainian security authorities (SBU) are threatening the leadership of the Central Election Commission of Russia with life imprisonment and confiscation of their property.

Ukrainian security authorities identify ‘collaborators’

By August 31 the SBU had managed to identify by name more than 3,500 “active participants” in the illegal “elections” in the four districts. Investigators have yet to make specific charges against anyone other than the leadership of Russia’s Central Election Commission. However, Kiev assures that all “criminal activities will continue to be recorded”, both on the part of Russian citizens, whose actions are recorded as an attack on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and on the part of Ukrainian citizens, whose action of it is evaluated as cooperation. But of course, the illegal “election process” involves 7 to 10 times more people than the SBU has identified so far.

For example, according to the occupying authorities, in the Lugansk region alone 5260 people are involved in the organization of “fake elections” as members of “election commissions” of various levels. 336 candidates are running for the “Regional Duma” and another 3241 for 28 “local councils”. In total, 8,800 people are participating in just one district, not including “election observers”. However, it will not be easy to identify all those who participate in the mock elections, because the “election commissions” are not allowed to give information about either their members or their candidates for security reasons. Nevertheless, the SBU promises to do everything possible to hold accountable all those responsible for the illegal votes. But the participants in the mock elections don’t just face years of criminal charges.

Last week, facilities related to the upcoming “elections” were targeted at least twice – for example, on August 29, at the headquarters of Russia’s leading United Russia party in Nova Kakhovka. And on August 30, various Ukrainian media, citing SBU sources, reported a drone attack on an “election center” in the town of Kamianka-Dynprovska in the Zaporizhia region.

The importance of the election for the Kremlin

Independent Russian experts argue that the September elections on Russian territory are important primarily for the power apparatus in Moscow. These are the last before Putin is likely to seek re-election to a fifth term next spring. “Showing that he is in control is the main demand of these elections,” says Kirill Rogov, an exiled political scientist, at a media briefing organized by Germany’s Sakharov Society. His colleague Alexander Kinev, who remained in Moscow, also spoke of the “symbolic” importance of the vote for the Kremlin given that many of the regions where the elections are now being held were traditionally considered more protest vote areas.

Fair and free elections are light years away. Farther than at any time since Putin came to power some 24 years ago. “This is the most empty, boring and opaque election campaign in Russia’s recent history,” the independent Golos (Voice) election observers wrote in their report. Just recently its co-chairman Grigory Melkondzhanz was arrested in Moscow. The organization that has repeatedly revealed in recent years massive violations of the electoral law and frauds, is a thorn in the power apparatus and has been characterized as a “foreign agent” for years.

And this time, the Golos organization has already revealed cases of pressure and manipulation before the polls even opened. The only real opposition party that still has candidates is the liberal Yabloko party. Yamblock. But he has been out of the Duma since 2007 and is now mainly fighting against political insignificance and the hoodlums of the repression apparatus. A Yabloko candidate was arrested in St. Petersburg while handing out campaign leaflets. Police searched the home of one party colleague and another is being investigated for carrying a white-blue-white flag, a symbol of Russia’s wartime allies.