🔶 Putin accuses Ukraine of disrupting Russia’s elections

Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, accused Ukraine of attempting to disrupt his country’s parliamentary elections. In this connection, on Friday, September 18 (27 Shahrivar), Putin referred to an attack attributed to Ukraine in which, according to reports, the head of one of the polling stations in Zaporizhzhia was killed during the current week.

For the first time, residents of Zaporizhzhia and three other regions of Ukraine that Moscow, after the start of the war, annexed to its own territory unlawfully, are eligible to vote in Russia’s State Duma elections—areas that Russia still does not fully control.

Voting is also taking place in the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea; a region that Russia also annexed to its territory unlawfully in 2014.

Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s election commission, said that after Ukrainian drones damaged power lines, in 14 polling stations in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region they were forced to use emergency power sources.