The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has placed Ella Pamfilova, the head of the Central Election Commission of Russia, her deputy Nikolai Bulayev and the commission's secretary Natalya Budarina, under suspicion for their role in an attack on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. They face life imprisonment and the confiscation of their property  because of their suspected role in organizing sham elections to legitimize the Russian occupation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

An SBU statement accuses Pamfilova of helping top Russian military and political brass to "legalize" the "occupying regime" in territories under "temporary occupation." It says that Pamfilova's next task will likely be to "completely falsify" the results of sham elections to favorize "puppets" or "candidates set up by the Kremlin."

The SBU for the first time also accuses the Russian electoral commission of being involved in the pseudo-referendums to allow the annexation of occupied territories by the Russian Federation.

Forced to vote at gunpoint

On September 10, elections to regional parliaments as well as to municipal and district councils are being held throughout Russia. But in parts of the four Ukrainian regions currently occupied by Russia, "elections" are taking place over a longer period. On the frontline, "mobile election commissions" reportedly started visiting private households on August 31.

SBU spokesman Artem Dekhtyarenko told DW that people had been told to "cast their votes" in the presence of armed representatives of the occupation police force. 

Dekhtyarenko said that the Kremlin had ordered its representatives to ensure there was maximum voter turnout in order to create the appearance of an "electoral process." He said that in Berdyansk, for example, "the Russian invaders and their henchmen are forcing the head doctors of medical institutions to order their staff to participate in the sham elections." He urged Ukrainians not to participate in the "fake referendum" and not to do anything that could help the "aggressor."   

Like during the pseudo-referendums of 2022, the Ukrainian government has said that it will not punish people for "voting," particularly if they are forced to do so at gunpoint, but it has pointed out that active participation, such as working for local "election commissions," running for a position in administrations run by the occupying forces, or acting as an "election observer," will be considered a "serious crime."

Tens of thousands of potential suspects

As of August 31, the SBU had identified by name more than 3,500 "active participants" in the illegal "elections" taking place in four occupied regions of Ukraine. Concrete charges have not been brought against anybody, except the three representatives of the Russian Central Election Commission mentioned above.

However, the Ukrainian government has said that all "criminal activity continues to be documented" and specified that Russian citizens will be charged with being involved in an attack on Ukraine's territorial integrity while Ukrainian nationals will be accused of collaboration.

It would appear, however, that there are seven to 10 times more people involved in the illegal "election" than the SBU has stated so far. According to occupying forces in the region of Luhansk, 5,260 people are registered as members of "election commissions" and there are 336 candidates for the "regional duma" and 3,241 candidates for 28 "local councils." This comes to 8,800 in one region alone and does not include "election observers."

But it will not be easy to identify the participants in the pseudo-elections as the "election commissions" are not allowed to provide information about their members or candidates for security reasons.

Difficult to convict suspects

Investigations into previous illegal elections have shown that there will probably not be any fast sentencing of what could turn out to be tens of thousands of potential defendants. According to a study by the Ukrainian NGO "Opora," only 288 of the people who took part in the sham referendums that took place in Crimea and the Donbas in 2014 have been convicted so far. The vast majority have been handed down suspended sentences for their involvement in Russia's attack on territorial integrity.

In autumn 2022, the organizers of the "referendums" on the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions were charged by Ukrainian law enforcement officials under a new article of the country's criminal code, which states that the holding of an illegal election is equated with working for the occupation forces and punishable by between five and 10 years in jail.

According to DW's sources, fewer people took part in the pseudo-referendums hastily organized by the Russian authorities in 2022, than seem to be involved in this year's "elections." In 2022, local resistance groups published information about those who participated and the Ukrainian authorities were able to register dozens, even hundreds, of suspects, before and after the "vote."

DW has since been able to ascertain that verdicts have been spoken in 80 of the cases against those who organized the "elections." This is about one-tenth of the sentences handed down for collaboration so far. According to Ukrainian prosecutors, almost 6,200 such cases have been opened nationwide. It is not clear how many of these are related to the "elections" in the occupied territories.

All 80 cases assessed by DW involved guilty verdicts, but half were pronounced in absentia because during wartime collaboration can be examined without the accused being present if it is proven that they are in an occupied territory. In such cases, the courts can hand down a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail and confiscate property.

Among those accused present at their trials, there was a majority of residents from the right bank of the Kherson region, which was liberated a little more than a month after the pseudo-referendum. Since then, some 20 members of "election commissions," mostly women of pre-retirement and retirement age from villages in the north of the region, have pleaded guilty, receiving the minimum, yet still severe, sentence of five years in jail.

Attacks on buildings related to elections

The SBU has vowed to do everything in its power to hold to account all those responsible for the illegal elections. Moreover, those who participate in the votes face other risks than criminal prosecution: On August 29, the Nova Kakhovka headquarters of Russia's ruling United Russia party came under attack and the next day, several Ukrainian media outlets, citing SBU sources, reported a drone attack on a "polling station" in the town of Kamyanka-Dniprovska in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Ahead of the pseudo-referendums that took place in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian security forces announced that they would "uncover sabotage squads and prevent terrorist attacks."

Ukraine's intelligence services have denied any such intentions, accusing the Russians of repressing people in the occupied territories.

This article was originally written in Russian.