Putin said officials had reported early on Monday that rail links had been restored from Rostov in southern Russia to the Russian-controlled cities of Donetsk, Mariupol and Berdyansk, and further upgrades would follow.
China-Russia ties set to deepen with another presidential term for Putin
China-Russia ties set to deepen with another presidential term for Putin
Meanwhile, armed guards took part in door-to-door voting operations in occupied regions of Ukraine as part of Russia’s recent presidential elections, according to multiple reports.
Russians went to the polls over the weekend in an election widely seen as a sham and foregone conclusion, with incumbent Putin winning 87 per cent of the vote.
In the Kherson village of Novomykolaivka, local official Yevheniia Hliebova told The Washington Post newspaper that election officials would walk around “in a brigade accompanied by an armed soldier”.
“He was carrying a weapon, so it was a threat, not verbal, but in fact it was a threat of violence,” she said, describing it as an “election at gunpoint”.
Those who refused were threatened, she said.
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Russia-China relations to grow stronger, Putin says, after clinching landslide election win
Russia-China relations to grow stronger, Putin says, after clinching landslide election win
Ukraine’s National Resistance Centre said in a recent report that “voting at gunpoint is another Russian crime against civilians”.
The group, citing unnamed sources, said that thousands of Russian National Guardsmen, police, as well as privately contracted security personnel, were sent to protect election sites and “mobile electoral commissions.”
A former resident of the Kherson region told the Post that her niece, who is still there, was approached by a woman conducting a door-to-door operation accompanied by two Russian soldiers.
The “preliminary voting”, as it was called, was being carried out ostensibly because of Ukrainian shelling in the area, the outlet reported.
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Sources in occupied areas, speaking anonymously for fear of retribution, told the Kyiv Independent that Russian troops had been rounding up Ukrainians and forcing them to vote.
One former resident of Mariupol, in Donetsk, told Qatar-based Al Jazeera news agency that people who remain there “must submit to the regime and pretend they support everything that’s going on because they’re afraid for their lives”.
There was no secrecy to the vote, she added.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US Representative to the United Nations, called the process in occupied Ukraine a “sham election” that shows “manifest disregard for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Ivan Fedorov, the head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, likened the election mobilisation efforts to an episode in a television drama – essentially a fiction.
But at the same time, Russian forces are terrorising people in the occupied territories into believing that Russia’s presence there is forever, he wrote on Telegram.
Elections have been a major part of Russia’s efforts to legitimise its occupation of Ukraine, including sham referendums in 2022 meant to formalise its annexation of four regions.
During those polls, armed soldiers were also reported going door-to-door to collect votes.