"There are already 639 thousand people as of today", - head of the Main Directorate of the MIA of Russia for the Rostov oblast Oleg Agarkov, head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Rostov Region answered the question about the number of residents of CADLO who received Russian passports at a meeting of the regional legislative assembly on February 18 this year.
In turn, deputy head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Dmitry Kozak stated in the interview with the Politique Internationale French magazine in July five months after Agarkov's statement that "about 470 thousand residents (of CADLO - ed.) received Russian passport"…
In the same July 2021, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs Viktor Vodolatsky stated at the Forum of Russian citizens in Luhansk that 611 thousand residents received Russian citizenship under simplified procedure. Although a year earlier, in March 2020, he said that "about 600-800 thousand" residents would be able to receive Russian passports under simplified procedure by the end of 2020. "Until the end of 2020"…
It looks like it did not work out that way, because in the 9th month of 2021, on the last day of voting in the State Duma, chairman of the commission for international cooperation of the Human Rights Council of the Russian Federation Kirill Vyshinsky indicated the number of residents of Donbas who received Russian passports - 650 thousand people. It is unknown how many "new Russians" are in the Donbas in fact, but even if we take Vyshinsky's figure as a basis, then the results of the Russian election in the Donbas are clearly disastrous for Moscow. Since the same Vyshinsky and other official Russian sources reported that only 200 thousand people had discharged their "civic duty" out of these 650 thousand. That is, only one third! Despite the threats of dismissal from work and study, writing explanatory reports for not participating in the election, round-the-clock total brainwashing and, most importantly, money spent by the Russian Federation…
We divide this figure into voters of the traditional form of voting - with a trip to the Rostov oblast, and remote – via the Internet. The first are 50 thousand, the second, who took the trouble to enter the Internet and click with the mouse – 150 thousand. Now let us count: is it a lot or a little?
Unfortunately, the exact number of people who actually live in the occupied territory of Donbas is unknown. Occupation administrations of CADLO conducted a "population census" back in 2019, but the results, apparently, are so shocking that they have not yet been published. Therefore, we take as a basis the figure most often heard in the Russian media and experts' estimates - 3.5 million people.
200 thousand out of 3.5 million is only 5.7%. So to say that "the entire Donbas voted" is a very big propaganda embellishment.
Let us analyze 50 thousand people taken out to the Rostov oblast in 3 days. This figure can be considered realistic from the point of view of technical support for the transportation of such a number of people in three days. But can it be called positive for the reporting of Putin's lackeys, Pasechnik and Pushilin, to their Moscow masters?
According to the already mentioned chairman of the commission for international cooperation of the Human Rights Council of the Russian Federation Kirill Vyshinsky, 1400 transport trips, including railway ones, were organized from CADLO for three days. There are only 12 of the latter, so we will rely on buses, conventionally giving the railway passengers 5000 seats.
We take it to a minimum: the average capacity of a bus is 40 seats. We divide the remaining 45 000 by 1388 bus trips - we get 32 people on a bus. This is despite the fact that Russian channels showed the delivery of happy holders of Russian passports with Ukrainian faces on large modern liners, and they, as a rule, have 60 seats. It is clear that this is only a picture, but even with the use of forty-seat Ikaruses of the old production, it turns out that the buses were clearly underutilized. That is, either the number of trips is for the report for the gasoline stolen by local folks up top, or the "tourist attractiveness" of the Rostov polling stations among the population of Donbas is not as high as Russian propagandists lie about. Even the dry provision units in the form of cookies and bananas distributed on the trip did not fix this…
Now let us look at the price-to-vote ratio in remote electronic "voting". So, in order 150 thousand "voters" in the so-called "republics" to "vote", 396 information centers (in fact, polling stations) were organized: 255 – in the "DNR" and 141 – in the "LNR". Each had a permanent (two month paid) staff and about 5400 "volunteers", paid only for election days. Of course, no one will say how much it cost the Russian taxpayer, but it is obvious that not one billion rubles. Plus, payment for the technical support of "voting", and spending on the United Russia advertising in the occupied territory of Ukraine, both in the media and external…
That is, the sheepskin of these electoral "sheep" was clearly not worth the money that was spent on its manufacture. Residents of the occupied Donbas take Russian passports, but they do not feel obliged to pay for it. Even with their time. Moreover, on the weekend…
This "election" became a vivid evidence of the desacralization of the Russian "passportization" from the point of view of the ideology of the Russian Spring. The entire value of the Russian passport was reduced for the residents of CADLO purely to receiving material benefits from the occupier, collecting, so to speak, compensation for the ruined lives…
And the most striking indicator of the Russian election campaign failure in the Donbas is, of course, the turnout. If the turnout is more than 51% in the Russian Federation itself, then it did not even reach 30% on the "forefront of the Russian world", in the Donbas. Let me remind you once again that this is with stiff administrative pressure and billions of rubles spent on transport, campaigning, technical and personnel support for the voting…
Serhiy Harmash, CRDSP, OstroV