In Mariupol, a martyred city conquered by Vladimir Putin’s army, the presidential vote was supervised by civil servants and soldiers under orders from Moscow.
Two years after being almost razed by the Russian army, Mariupol, the port city on the Sea of Azov, unsurprisingly voted for Vladimir Putin.
The Russian president had made it a question of principle: to show his public opinion that the illegally conquered city was indeed Russian and that it participated in the presidential election like any other municipality in the Russian Federation.
But it was under good escort that the voters took part in the vote (voting was not obligatory).
For fear of Ukrainian air raids, 136 mobile polling stations were deployed during early voting with Russian flags and patriotic music to get in the mood.
Accompanied by soldiers, Russian officials went to collect their voters directly from their homes.
“Elections” in the territories occupied by Moscow
This electoral staging to re-elect President Putin was also observed in the Luhansk Territory as well as in parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson provinces.
Dark anniversary: in Mariupol, the vote was organized two years to the day after the Russian bombing of the Drama theater, on March 16, 2022. This bombing is considered the deadliest Russian attack against civilians since the start of the war in Ukraine. Two 500 kg bombs hit the building, where between 800 and 1,200 people had taken refuge.
Hundreds of people died. The exact toll is not known, as the competent authorities have not carried out an investigation. The Kremlin has always denied its involvement, trying to shift the blame to the Ukrainians.
At the end of 2023, the demolition of the ruins of the theater began: according to Kyiv, Moscow is trying to erase the last evidence of the massacre.
Several organizations consider the bombing to be intentional, and therefore a war crime, since the theater was clearly not a military target and was too far from any other installation to be assumed to have occurred. was an error.
