The inhabitants of the four Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia in 2022 – Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – will be able to vote in the Russian presidential elections in March 2024, although they lack a Russian passport, as reported by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC). “In my opinion, it is the only correct decision,” said the president of the CEC, Ela Pamfilova, to the TASS agency when answering a question about whether it will be possible to vote in the upcoming elections with a Ukrainian passport.

According to Pamfilova, it is “important that people who reside there permanently, but who for some reason they could not obtain the Russian passport or something happened to them, they have the right to vote using (another) document that identifies them.” “It is a completely reasonable and correct decision for this specific period until the situation stabilizes,” he insisted.

The CEC president stressed that during the flooding of the Nova Kajovka dam last summer, many local residents lost all their documents, “including Russian passports.” At the same time, he emphasized that the final decision on the documents required to vote will be made by local authorities.

Previously, the Russian electoral authorities adopted a resolution that granted the electoral commissions of the annexed regions the right to establish the list of documents that will be required to vote in case the voters do not have a Russian passport.

Political scientists anticipate that the current head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, will receive on March 17, 2024 “a level of support greater than 70%“, while some predict that it will even exceed the 76.7% of 2018. The Russian opposition considers that the elections will be a referendum on the war in Ukraine and denounces that the electronic voting that will take place in some regions may favor fraud. According to the CEC, today, there are more than 30 candidates for the presidency From Russia.