Throughout September, exiled Ukrainian officials with access to residents of the occupied regions have been reposting reports from the ground.<\/p>\n
One eyewitness in Kherson Oblast, southern Ukraine, in comments reported by Yurii Sobolevskii, first deputy head of the region\u2019s council, said: \u201cToday we also have these elections in the village. [The Russians] go from house to house, but people warn each other about whose street it is and run to hide, pretending that there is no one at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another local resident reported that \u201ctwo soldiers with machine guns and three collaborators from the village\u201d were conducting \u201cdoor-to-door rounds\u201d, forcing those hiding to vote under threat of severe punishment.<\/p>\n
Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to Ukraine\u2019s mayor of Mariupol, posted photos of a car manned by Russian authorities in the occupied city in Donetsk Oblast. \u201c[The Russians] grabbed everyone around, documents were not checked,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
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Reports suggest mobile voting booths, which are simply cars stuffed with ballot paper, are being driven to local bus stops. While armed guards loom over them, civilians are then plucked from the streets and hurriedly forced to vote.<\/p>\n
In Berdyansk, in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, hospital bosses have been ordered to send all medical staff to polling stations, making avoiding the vote evermore difficult.<\/p>\n
In other areas, described by Russian-appointed governors as \u201chard-to-reach settlements and places near the front line\u201d, voting was brought forward to ensure that they were not able to avoid casting their \u201cdecision\u201d.<\/p>\n
Donetsk election commission member Marina Guselnikova told TASS it was to \u201cprotect our citizens … in order to avoid crowding at polling stations\u201d, a thinly-veiled suggestion that Ukraine would bomb its own people.<\/p>\n
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Don’t miss… <\/strong> In reality, it is an attempt to \u201cmanipulate the numbers\u201d, Elina Beketova, a Crimean-born journalist now working as an in-house fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, told Express.co.uk.<\/p>\n \u201cBy offering so many options for voting over so many days, Moscow is maximising its opportunities to massage the numbers and feed its propaganda channels\u201d, she wrote on Thursday (September 7).<\/p>\n \u201cIf there are fewer people than expected at polling stations on September 10, it will now be more plausible for the Kremlin to claim others voted from home or voted early when it publishes inflated turnout statistics.\u201d<\/p>\n The candidates on the ballot include regime-linked officials, people involved in war crimes and corruption, and Russians brought into Ukraine especially for the vote, according to analysis by IStories and the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT). All of the candidates are pro-Kremlin.<\/p>\n But the occupying authorities need to force Ukrainian participation in the elections to show to their fellow Russians at home and abroad that there is overwhelming support for their \u201cspecial military operation\u201d.<\/p>\n Ms Beketova said these efforts were part of a \u201cpropaganda machine\u201d designed for one purpose: to give the inaccurate impression that \u201ceverything is stable and under control\u201d in the occupied regions.<\/p>\n The Russians are \u201ccreating this parallel reality that the resident population is very happy with what is going on there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n That these elections are fraudulent is unsurprising. Russia under Vladimir Putin has quashed opposition and rigged elections for decades. The lengths to which Russian forces will go to push their propaganda, however, for the sake only of justifying their invasion, is shocking.<\/p>\n
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Moment missiles hits Ukraine as 52 injured and more trapped under rubble[LIVE] <\/strong><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/78\/590x\/secondary\/Russian-authorities-drive-mobile-voting-units-to-Ukrainian-bus-stops-4950583.jpg?r=1694203004780\")
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