Elections at gunpoint: Footage shows armed Russian soldiers collecting votes in occupied Donetsk

Voting is usually a quiet event where citizens head to a local school or hall to mark a secret piece of paper.

But when elections take place in the middle of a conflict, normal rules often disappear completely.

Sometimes the ballot box comes straight to your front door – accompanied by armed soldiers.

Doorstep ballot boxes

Video footage from the Russian-occupied Donetsk Oblast in Eastern Ukraine shows armed soldiers and police officers moving through small villages carrying portable voting booths and plastic containers.

Residents marked their ballot paper outside their own houses while heavily armed guards stood nearby. Representatives from Russia’s election commission managed the mobile stations alongside the military personnel.

Journalists from Euronews noted that the video could not confirm total turnout figures or reveal how many residents actually agreed to participate.

Main voting across the country runs from September 18 to 20, but Moscow claims early doorstep voting is necessary to protect election staff and voters under current martial law rules in frontline areas.

Ukrainian authorities warned residents against taking part in the process. The Security Service of Ukraine issued a stern warning stating that organizing, running, or promoting foreign elections is a major criminal offense. Anyone caught promoting or running the voting faces up to ten years in prison.

Votes from dead men

This push for early doorstep voting expands on a pattern seen weeks earlier in southern Ukraine. Early balloting began there on August 29, where reports surfaced about unusual tactics benefiting the ruling United Russia party.

Military clerks inside a Russian regiment reportedly delayed registering dead troops as killed in action. By keeping those names active on official unit records, army staff created fake voters on paper.

Officers then filled out individual ballot sheets using the identities of dead soldiers. Once marked, those fake votes were delivered directly to voting sites in occupied hubs like Melitopol, Berdiansk, and Tokmak.

Ukrainian security officials continue urging residents in all occupied territories to stay away from the ballot boxes completely to avoid severe legal penalties.

When Putin got 107 % of the votes

During the 2012 presidential election in Russia, DR and NBC News reported that Putin got 107% of the votes in Precinct 451 in the capital Grozny in Chechnya – a region, Russia had just been at war with twice at the time.

Putin got 1,482 votes and (former Communist leader Gennady) Zyuganov got one. Impressice indeed, but there were only 1,389 people registered to vote in the precinct.

That means the turnout was 107 percent.

In other parts of Chechnya, there were reports of voters being driven from polling station to polling station, voting at them all.

All in all, Putin got 99% of the votes in the region, where he had jut brutally but down a seperatist movement.

His opponent got 0.04% of the votes.

This article is made and published by Jens Asbjørn Bogen, who may have used AI in the preparation