Reports

On 10 September 2023, Russian authorities held the annual “single voting day” across the country as well as in Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied by Russia in the period between 2014 and 2022. With the aim of providing a degree of international legitimacy to the otherwise illegitimate Russian elections in Ukrainian territories, Russian occupation forces brought a number of foreigners to perform a role of “international election observers”. EPDE identified 34 fake observers involved in the “international observation” of Russian “elections” in occupied Ukrainian territories.

With the gradual systemic decline of the democratic character of Russian presidential, parliamentary, and other elections, Vladimir Putin’s regime found it increasingly difficult to secure their international legitimacy. In an attempt to give the impression of international legitimation of the parliamentary elections, Russian authorities reportedly brought in 383 “international observers” and “experts” from 80 countries.

Kremlin-friendly foreign politicians, journalists, lobbyists and activists have once again been invited to praise the disputed “all-Russian voting” on the constitutional amendments proposed by President Putin. The main motivation behind inviting foreign politically biased observers to the “voting”, which has no basis in Russian legislation, is to provide a semblance of international legitimacy to constitutional amendments that have already been approved by the Russian parliament.

In this report, Anton Shekhovtsov analyzes how the structures of "Putin's Chef" Yevgeniy Prigozhin interfere in electoral processes in African countries with the help of fake election observation. This report focuses on the Association for Free Research and International Cooperation (AFRIC), an organization that Shekhovtsov has previously investigated and found to be involved in politically biased election observation and pro-Kremlin efforts, and is linked to Prigozhin. 

In Anton Shekhovtsov’s newest study, he analyzes how Russian officials invited "international experts" with known involvement in various pro-Kremlin efforts to observe the regional elections in Moscow and how they were used by officials, pro-regime media and organizations to legitimize the electoral process and neutralize the negative effect of refusing to register independent opposition candidates for the elections to the Moscow City Duma.

In Anton Shekhovtsov’s newest study, he identifies different factors that influence the occurrence of Russian interference in international elections. This article discusses elections in France, Norway, Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, and Sweden that took place in 2017-2018, and shows how different combinations of these factors produced different outcomes in terms of Russian meddling.