Local elections take place across Russia, but Ukraine is ‘not on the agenda’
By The Associated Press
Local elections are taking place this weekend in 79 regions of Russia. Voters are choosing local governors and legislatures as well as city and municipal councilors. Voting is also underway in the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed last year — the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia provinces — as well as Crimea, which the Kremlin took from Ukraine in 2014. In Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin is running for re-election, and is unlikely to lose a race in which all contenders come from Kremlin-backed parties. A Russian political analyst speaking to the AP called the elections “empty,” and said the war in Ukraine is not on the agenda at all.
