In the occupied territories of Ukraine, the Russian government has begun another theatrical performance designed to look like democracy. It has drawn up the official party lists for the sham elections to the State Duma, and the names on those lists tell a revealing story. According to the Center for Countering Disinformation, the Kremlin has not chosen the local collaborators who have been running occupied towns and villages. Instead, it has sent in what the Center calls “Varangians” from Russia—loyalists, career politicians, and military figures who have no real connection to the people they claim to represent. The list is headed by State Duma Deputy Viktor Vodolatsky, former Ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova, Deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov, and Admiral Vladimir Kasatonov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Navy. These are not local voices. They are not people who have suffered through the occupation, who know the names of the streets, who understand the fear in the eyes of their neighbors. They are emissaries from Moscow, sent to occupy another kind of space: the space of political representation. For Ukrainians living under occupation, this is not an abstract political detail. It is a daily humiliation. It is the experience of being told that your vote will be collected by strangers who cannot look you in the eye, who have never had to live with the consequences of their decisions, and who answer to a political machine that does not care whether you live or die.
The contrast between how the Kremlin treats its own regions and how it treats the occupied territories of Ukraine is stark and revealing. In Russia itself, candidate lists are traditionally headed by local leaders—governors, mayors, regional officials who can claim at least some kind of connection to the voters. There is an understanding, even in an authoritarian system, that people expect to see familiar faces. But in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the Kremlin has abandoned even that pretense. It has sent in outsiders, “Varangians,” as the Center for Countering Disinformation puts it, to take the top spots on the electoral lists. Russian propaganda is trying to sell this as “successful integration” and “special attention from Moscow.” The official narrative is that Moscow cares so much about these territories that it is sending its best people to guide them. But the reality is exactly the opposite. The real reason is direct control, total distrust of local collaborators, and a determination to strengthen the Kremlin’s grip on every aspect of life in the occupied regions. The local collaborators who took the risk of siding with the occupiers, who publicly betrayed their own people, who expected to be rewarded with power and privilege, are now being told that they are not trustworthy enough to even appear on the ballot. For them, this is a brutal awakening. For ordinary residents, it is an even clearer message: the occupation is not about liberation, integration, or any of the other words the Kremlin uses. It is about subjugation. The people living in these territories are not constituents. They are subjects.
The entire electoral exercise is not only a sham, it is also completely illegal. The Center for Countering Disinformation emphasizes that the organization and conduct of any Russian “elections” in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine violate international law in the most fundamental way and have no legal force whatsoever. This is not a matter of political interpretation. Under the Geneva Conventions, under the UN Charter, under the basic principles of international humanitarian law, an occupying power does not have the right to impose its own electoral systems on the people whose territory it occupies. A vote conducted under the shadow of an occupying army cannot be a genuine expression of the will of the people. It is a scripted event, staged for cameras, with results that are decided long before the polling stations open. For the people forced to experience it, the sham election is not a moment of choice but a moment of coercion. They see polling stations staffed by Russian officials. They see ballots printed in a foreign language. They see soldiers and security forces watching from the corners, not to protect the vote but to ensure that the right result is delivered. The only choice being offered is between accepting Russian rule and facing the consequences of resistance. There is no joy in this process, no sense of civic pride, no belief that voting will change anything. There is only the heavy awareness that the outcome has already been written in Moscow, long before the first ballot is cast, and that the people being asked to participate are not citizens but props in a political spectacle.
Alongside this electoral theater, Russia has intensified another form of pressure on the occupied territories: military recruitment among young people, especially students. The Center for Countering Disinformation reports that the aggressor state has stepped up its efforts to recruit students from Ukraine’s occupied territories into its army, spreading stories about an allegedly beneficial and safe combination of military service and education. This is one of the cruelest deceptions of the occupation. Young people have already lost so much. They have lost their schools, their friends, their sense of safety, their ability to plan for the future. They are vulnerable, exhausted, and desperate for some kind of path forward. Russian recruiters come to them with promises of scholarships, career opportunities, and a better life. They paint military service as a reasonable trade: a few years of service in exchange for an education, a salary, a place in society. But the reality is far darker. These young people are not being offered a future. They are being pushed toward the front lines of an illegal war, used as expendable soldiers in a conflict that is not theirs, and forced to fight against their own people. The promise of safety is a lie. The promise of education is a fantasy. The only thing that is real is the danger, the trauma, and the lifelong burden of having been used by an occupying power. For families in the occupied territories, this recruitment drive is a nightmare. They watch their children be lured away by smooth-talking officials who talk about benefits and opportunities, only to receive phone calls months later telling them that their child has been wounded, captured, or killed in a war they never chose to fight.
What unites the sham elections and the recruitment campaign is a fundamental contempt for the people of Ukraine. The Kremlin’s decision to send Moscow officials to head the “United Russia” lists shows that it does not even trust its own appointees in the occupied territories. It views local collaborators as useful tools, but it does not consider them worthy of real power. They are meant to follow orders, not to represent communities. The recruitment campaign shows that the Kremlin views young Ukrainians not as students with potential but as cannon fodder for its imperial ambitions. This is the logic of colonialism. The Russian authorities behave as if the occupied territories are empty land to be administered, not communities to be respected. They send outsiders to speak for people they have never met. They call this integration, but the real word is absorption. They call it attention, but the real word is surveillance. They call it protection, but the real word is occupation. The historical echoes in the Center’s language are deliberate and powerful. The term “Varangians” recalls the medieval mercenaries who served foreign rulers, outsiders with no loyalty to the land they were sent to control. The term “Gauleiters” evokes the Nazi regional party leaders, figures who were defined by their absolute obedience to a totalitarian center and their brutality toward the people under their authority. By using these words, the Center captures exactly what the Kremlin is doing: ruling through outsiders, enforcing control from above, and denying any genuine form of local voice. The sham elections are not a step toward democracy. They are a step toward complete absorption.
In the end, none of these elections have any legal force, but they still have real consequences for real people. The sham vote will not be recognized by Ukraine, by the international community, or by anyone who believes in the principle of self-determination. But it will still cause fear and confusion. It will still embolden collaborators and punish those who resist. It will still make the work of civil society harder and the risks of speaking out greater. And the recruitment drive will still cost lives, as young people are drawn into a war they never chose and sent to die for a cause they do not believe in. Yet there is also a kind of clarity in all of this. When an occupying power reveals its true face—when it sends strangers to stand for election and recruiters to take your children—it becomes impossible to pretend that it cares about the people it claims to be integrating. The Russian government is not offering a better future. It is offering a cage, painted to look like a home. The international community must continue to say this clearly, again and again: the elections are a sham, the occupation is illegal, and the people of Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories remain Ukrainian citizens with full rights under the law. Supporting Ukraine is not only a matter of politics. It is a matter of defending the simple truth that a people cannot be forced to trade their voice for a foreign flag. Until that truth is restored, every sham ballot and every false promise is a reminder that freedom is not given. It is taken, and it must be fought for.