Ficked up

According to the Kremlin, residents of the occupied part of the Kherson region actively voted for Putin. How was it really?

"With daily shelling, it makes no sense to imitate the electoral process"

The final turnout at the President of the Russian Federation in the Kherson region, taking into account the appearance on early voting, amounted to 83.87%, the election commission said in the territory occupied by Russian troops. According to Marina Zakharova, the chairman of the commission, after the processing of 100% of the protocols, Vladimir Putin scored 88.12% of the votes of the Kherson voters. She also stated that the elections were held without violations.

According to the official data of the authorities appointed by Russia, 61 polling station worked in the region, and three hundred mobile output groups were running, thanks to which people could vote in the house territories and at home.

“They may have cruised somewhere, but certainly not with us,” 45-year-old Andrei, a resident of Oleshek, told Novaya Gazeta Europe. - According to our “Road of Death” in Olesha, few risks with their propaganda to meddle, their drones “matules” are covered there. To us, from the side of the naked pier, only cars with products and industrial goods reach.

According to Andrei, if the elections were really held, then somewhere in the depths of the occupied territory. An early voting did not take place in Oleshak-"with daily shelling it makes no sense to imitate the electoral process and go somewhere in order to draw 100%for Putin."

Andrei and his relatives continue to live with Ukrainian passports, abandoning Russian payments and pensions. Thanks to the Ukrainian pension, they manage to buy a minimum of food so as not to starve. The only thing that worries him is the news: from July 1, the deportation of those who still have not received a Russian passport will begin.

“I can’t even imagine how they are going to realize this,” says Andrei.

- How will they catch the people left here to take them out of the occupied territory? Run after us with machine guns while they are shot from Ukrainian drones?

Andrei also noted that from Z-patriots there are already offers to hang on poles or shoot on the site of all the “Zhdunov” (as the Russian military call Ukrainians in the occupied territory waiting for the Armed Forces and de-Ukrainian).

"They poked a finger at me, I put a checkmark there"

While Andrei and his neighbors chose the position of “closed doors”, in the Oleshkovsky district - in Brillevka and the new beacon - the elections took place. In the morning of March 15, local “journalists” published photos and videos with happy voters, and already in the afternoon there was information about the arrival of a rocket in the building, where the inhabitants of Brilevka voted. There was also a drone arrival in the PEC in the city of Kakhovka. And if there were no casualties in Kakhovka, then in Brillevka, according to Marina Zakharova, voters suffered.

Shortly before the incident, Vladimir Saldo, appointed by the occupation power, the governor of the Kherson region, said that although the plots opened at 8 in the morning, in Kakhovka and New Kakhovka, people stood on the street from seven in the morning to vote rather. And in connection with the subsequent arrivals, it is not very clear what was rushing voters: the desire to rather fulfill their civic duty or to “shoot” faster in order to be as far as possible from an unsafe place.

“Everyone needs to come to the polls. This is a civic duty of everyone, and they must do it. Let's hope that the war will end soon and everything will be fine, ” the Tavria pro -Russian channel quotes the local resident of the advanced age. Similar plots were recorded in the iron port, and in Skadovsk, and in Genichesk.

“We came to our boarding house on the first day of voting,” Nadezhda, a 75-year-old pensioner from Kardashinka, who has been living in the point of temporary accommodation in the iron port since the summer of last summer, told us before the official results of the election. - I asked who is the youngest on this list? They poked my finger at me, and I put a checkmark there.

I don’t even remember the names of the candidates. What difference does it make, what their name is and who they are, if only to vote for Putin.

Although, knowing how the Russians act, there is no doubt that the victory will still be drawn to Putin. I would not have participated in this circus at all, but it is impossible: they said if someone refuses to vote-with things to exit. And for now I have nowhere to go, everything drowned.

"They already have our data, they, as they need, will vote for us."

“As a law -abiding citizen of the Russian Federation, I vote for a bright, excellent future that awaits us in the Kherson region,” shared in one of the videos similar to each other, Maria from the Iron Port, and the inhabitants of the naked pier immediately recognized the former employee of the local social protection in furs.

“It’s sad to look at the familiar faces of those who justify this bloody war due to money, but I hope that the law of Ukraine will still get to them,” says Natasha, a 41-year-old resident of a naked pier. - Among my relatives and friends, not one took part in these so -called "elections". In our city, they did not even organize voting places. I saw that in early March, the mobile group stopped to several elderly and little mobility. But there are really few of them.

According to Natasha, for most Holopanders this event went unnoticed. There were no agitation or advertising of candidates in the city. She is sure: not everyone even knew that there were elections. The naked pier is now considered a hard -to -reach place, so in different events the authorities at the Golopanstsy are strongly and do not look back.

She confirms her words and Vera, a 68-year-old pensioner from a naked pier. There are five inhabitants left on her street, and in the microdistrict itself you are unlikely to count 50 people (about three thousand people lived here before the war). Vera and retirement neighbors were forced to issue Russian passports this winter, otherwise they were refused pensions (in a naked pier-this is a monthly 10 thousand rubles in cash). Nobody issues bank cards, because in the city there are no banks or ATMs. And the city itself is almost no.

“In general, we have nowhere to go in order not to starve, we had to take this red passport,” Vera sighs.

-I know that in the villages there are beyond the 15-kilometer zone where there are doctors, even medical care does not provide those who are still with Ukrainian documents.

It’s easier for us: we don’t have any doctors, even a paramedic in the city, so they are not interested in anyone except those who carry a pension. In the news, they say that the elections are going here? Seriously? You would have seen what was left of the city - ruins. What elections can there be? I think that since they already have our data (we gave it when registering passports), they, as they need, will vote for us.

"Our opinion was neither in Ukraine, nor in Russia"

The situation is no better in the villages that are located quite far from the front line. In the small village of Chernomorskoye, which is closer to the Iron Port, one of the inhabitants told Novaya Gazeta Europe that after the New Year they had stopped paying money - and pensions and payments for disabled people and children's benefits - although they were obliged to issue passports last year. According to our interlocutor, no elections were held in their village, but in early March the mobile team came to the disabled and the old people. And last weekend, when the news was filled with videos from polling stations, there was complete silence.

In Skadovsk, at the school where the election point is located, classes were canceled, in the rest the children continued to study. According to the local election commission, a sabotage occurred at the polling station in Skadovsk: someone put a homemade explosive device in the trash in front of the entrance, it exploded. The unpleasant incident on the work of the site did not affect, and the elections continued in the festive atmosphere.

“In Skadovsk, there really was some event in connection with the declared elections took place, the music played, there were a lot of people on the street,” said 54-year-old Irina, living 10 kilometers from Skadovsk. -But in our village there was no agitation, even if some advertisement had been hanged on the door of the store. Moreover, there were no lotteries or draws, as in other regions of Russia. And there were no elections themselves in the village.

Despite the fact that Irina was one of the first to receive a Russian passport on the left bank and has been working for the occupation authorities for the second year, she admitted that there was still no desire to go to the polls, so their absence in her village was “for the better”.

“I'm not even interested in what candidates are there,” Irina said.

“They did not ask our opinion either in Ukraine, nor in Russia they didn’t,” the one whom the voices will be drawn will still win.

I refused to go to the polls five years ago, I did not like the candidates. Whoever needs the authorities will win, there is no other way in our country.

As the new newspaper Europe wrote , the entire adult population of the occupied territories, which was spelled out there at the beginning of 2022, included the lists of voters. Researchers note that the accounting of the population in these regions was at a low level before the start of the war, and after the full-scale invasion of Russia "exists somewhere in another universe." According to demographers, "these 4.6 million official voters are approximately 80% more than the number of adults living there."