The European Commission – the European Union’s executive branch – has downgraded its economic forecast for the Eurozone, saying inflation is still too high, consumer spending is down and Germany, the continent’s largest economy, is in recession.

At a news conference in Brussels Monday, EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said they are now predicting the gross domestic product (GDP) of the 27-nation EU will expand at eight-tenths of one percent for 2023, and at 1.3 percent in 2024.

Those numbers are down from the May projections of 1.1 and 1.6 percent, respectively.

Gentiloni said Germany’s GDP was significantly weaker than expected in the first half of this year, with declining wages driving down consumer spending, and lower external demand leading to subdued exports.

He said the German economy is now projected to shrink by 0.4 percent in 2023, “a significant downward revision” from a May prediction of 0.2 percent growth.

He said they are forecasting that Italy’s and the Netherlands’ economies will also grow more slowly this year, with GDP expansion of 0.9 percent and 0.5 respectively, down from earlier projections of 1.2 percent and 1.8 percent.

But the commission said the economies of France and Spain will grow faster than previously expected this year, projecting 1.0 percent and 2.2 percent growth respectively, instead of the previously seen 0.7 percent and 1.9 percent.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

 
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A 25-year-old foreign student has been arrested in Norway on suspicion of espionage, including illegal eavesdropping through various technical devices.

Norway’s domestic security agency, known by its acronym PST, told Norwegian media that the man, who was arrested on Friday, was charged in court on Sunday with espionage and intelligence operations against the Nordic country.

The man, whose identity and nationality haven’t been disclosed, has pleaded not guilty in initial police questioning. Norwegian authorities haven’t said which country the man was allegedly spying for.

“We don’t quite know what we’re facing. We are in a critical, initial and vulnerable phase of the investigation,” PST lawyer Thomas Blom was quoted as saying by Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. “He (the suspect) is charged with using technical installations for illegal signal intelligence.”

Police have seized from the man a number of data-carrying electronic devices, which the PST is now investigating. The suspect is a student, but he’s not enrolled at an educational institution in Norway, and he’s been living in Norway for a relatively short time, according to PST.

Citing the arrest order, NRK said the suspect had allegedly been caught conducting illegal signal surveillance in a rental car near the Norwegian prime minister’s office and the defense ministry.

According to a court decision, the man has been imprisoned in pretrial custody for four weeks with a ban on receiving letters and visits. Security officials said the suspect wasn’t operating alone.

In its previous assessments, PST has singled out neighboring Russia, China and North Korea as state actors that pose a significant intelligence threat to Norway, a nation of 5.4 million.
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Suspended Spanish soccer federation president Luis Rubiales has resigned from his post after a kiss scandal tarnished Spain’s victory at the Women’s World Cup.

Rubiales announced his resignation Sunday in a message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“After my swift suspension by FIFA, and the rest of the cases building against me, it is clear that I cannot return to the post,” Rubiales said in his statement.

Rubiales kissed star player Jenni Hermoso on the lips without her consent during the awards ceremony after Spain beat England to win the title on Aug. 20 in Sydney, Australia.

Spanish state prosecutors accused Rubiales of sexual assault and coercion after the unwanted kiss, the country’s prosecutors’ office said Friday, two days after Hermoso formally accused him of sexual assault.

He had already been suspended from his job by FIFA for his conduct at the final.

Rubiales said he also resigned as UEFA vice president.

Rubiales said that he had told interim Spanish federation president Pedro Rocha — who replaced him when Rubiales was suspended on Aug. 26 — of his resignation late Sunday night.

Rubiales, 46, is a former player and head of Spain’s main players union. He had run the federation since 2018.

Also Sunday, Rubiales said, “I am going to (resign), I cannot continue my work,” in reply to a question from TV host Piers Morgan on Britain’s TalkTV. Clips from the show were released Sunday.
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The death toll from flash floods that have inundated central Greece due to Storm Daniel has risen to 12 with the number expected to rise. The clean-up task in the Thessaly area comes as health officials warn of infectious diseases that are breaking out as a result of dead livestock scattered across devastated sections.

Hara Petropoulou pleas for assistance after Storm Daniel caused widespread flooding in central Greece.

“Help,” she shouts to the anchor of a Sunday morning show. “Please help.”

“We may have survived the floods that drowned our towns and homes… but the stench of decomposing animal carcasses …. Our chickens, our goats, rabbits and sheep… It is horrific and it is going to kill us,” she adds.

The wife of a farmer in the farming heartland of Greece, Petropoulou says she is left with no other option than to clean up the debris herself.

“I have a bottle of chlorine in my hand… and I’m ready to head out into a meter of mud and floodwaters to clear out our chicken coop and to drag away the dead sheep the storm left behind.”

“I have no other choice,” she says.

Petropoulou is not alone. Thousands of other farmers are following suit.

But that is exactly what health authorities are warning against.

Dysentery, diphtheria, and malaria are just some of the infectious diseases resulting from the floods that ravaged Thessaly, the farming heartland of Greece, and livestock for much of the past week.

On Sunday, state health and veterinary officials said they had deployed dozens of special crews to collect dead livestock, taking decomposing carcasses to special incinerators to be burned.

But with dozens of villages and hamlets still stranded … all devoid of clean water and sewage, fears of further outbreaks grow.

“Authorities alone have been tasked with the cleanup of dead livestock,” said Deputy Health Minister Irini Agapidakishe on public television.

“People have to stay away from dead livestock, and those that have survived… Goats, chicken, sheep, cows even their pets have to be steered clear and away from contaminated fields.”

“The repercussions,” she said, “will be terrible.”

The looming health crisis adds to Daniel’s destruction after walls of water pounded the Thessaly plain. Officials say over a four-day period, the storm drenched the affected areas with more rainfall than London sees in a full year.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis toured the region to inspect recovery operations. He was expected to announce unprecedented aid measures in a late-night address.

Locals though want more. They say the biggest but most pressing challenge is to rebuild the region to fortify it against future natural disasters and climate change.
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Russia launched about three dozen drones over Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, Sunday. The early-morning attack lasted about two hours, with debris falling over the city.

Meanwhile, the British Defense Ministry said Sunday Russia’s Pskov oblast, near the Estonian border, has organized “volunteer security patrols” to bring a stop to drone attacks against Kresty Air Base.  

The ministry said, due to the limited range of quadcopter drones, the attacks on Kresty were almost certainly launched from Russia.  The volunteer patrols will “likely” serve as a deterrence, according to the ministry.

The use of volunteers indicates that it is “highly likely” that there is a shortage of trained security personnel within Russia,” the ministry said.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces will continue in the coming months, regardless of inclement weather when fighting would be harder to conduct, Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said Saturday.

“Combat actions will continue in one way or another. In the cold, wet and mud, it is more difficult to fight. Fighting will continue. The counteroffensive will continue,” Budanov said.

Ukraine’s much-vaunted counteroffensive has seen some success in the south where Ukrainian forces have retaken a dozen villages over the past three months.

Ukraine’s armed forces are making “gradual tactical advances” against Russia’s defensive line east of the town of Robotyne, the British  ministry said Saturday in its daily intelligence update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But Ukraine’s military operation has been slower than anticipated because of hurdles that include vast minefields and heavily entrenched Russian forces.

Budanov’s comments, made during a news conference in Kyiv, indicate Ukraine does not intend to halt its push when the weather turns harsher later this year.

The slow progress of the counteroffensive has sparked concerns among Kyiv’s supporters that the West could face an uphill battle to maintain its support and the military aid needed to keep Ukraine battling at the same intensity level.

Ukraine’s advances in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, now centered around Robotyne and Verbove, are seen as a crucial part of an operation that seeks to split Russia’s occupying forces in half in the south but remains far from that goal.

“Our counteroffensive is happening in several directions,” Budanov said, acknowledging that progress had been slower than he wanted and describing the situation as difficult.

Apart from the huge concentration of Russian mines, he identified the large number of small Russian “kamikadze” drones as a key factor in slowing Ukraine’s progress so far.

Russian air defense says it shot down three Ukrainian drones over Crimea on Saturday, one in the northwest and two in the west of the peninsula, Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed head of the local administration, said on a post on Telegram.

Reuters could not verify the claims, and there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

G20 summit

The leaders of the world’s 20 wealthiest countries adopted a consensus declaration Saturday at the G20 summit, calling on all states to refrain from the use of force to seize territory but stopped short of condemning Russia for its war on Ukraine.

Despite the consensus declaration, the group remains deeply divided over the war. Western nations were pushing for a strong denunciation of Russia in the Leaders’ Declaration, while other countries demanded a focus on broader economic issues.

On the war in Ukraine, the declaration says that all states must refrain from threats or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state. It also called the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons “inadmissible” and urged for peaceful resolution of conflicts using diplomacy and dialog.

The G20 noted “different views and assessments of the situation,” regarding the war in Ukraine.

They called on Russia and Ukraine to ensure immediate and unimpeded deliveries of grain, foodstuffs, and fertilizers from Russia and Ukraine for the sake of global food and energy security and asked for the end of military destruction or other attacks on relevant infrastructure.

VOA White House Correspondent Anita Powell  contributed to this story.
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In an unprecedented move, the Vatican on Sunday beatified a Polish family of nine — a married couple and their small children — who were executed by the Nazis during World War II for sheltering Jews.

During a ceremonious Mass, papal envoy Cardinal Marcello Semeraro read out the Latin formula of the beatification of the Ulma family signed last month by Pope Francis.

A contemporary painting representing Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma with their children was uncovered near the altar. It is the first time that an entire family has been beatified.

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda along with the ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki were attending the celebration in the village of Markowa, in southeastern Poland, where the Ulmas were killed in 1944. Thousands of pilgrims came from across Poland to take part.

Last year, Pope Francis pronounced the deeply Catholic Ulma family, including the child that Wiktoria Ulma was pregnant with, martyrs for the faith, paving the way for the beatification Mass that is taking place in their home village of Markowa, in southeastern Poland.

The Ulmas were killed at home by German Nazi troops and by Nazi-controlled local police in the small hours of March 24, 1944, together with the eight Jews they were hiding at home, after they were apparently betrayed.

Jozef Ulma, 44, was a farmer, Catholic activist and amateur photographer who documented family and village life. He lived with his 31-year-old wife Wiktoria; their daughters Stanislawa, 7; Barbara, 6; Maria, 18 months; and sons Wladyslaw, 5; Franciszek, 3; and Antoni, 2.

With them were killed 70-year-old Saul Goldman with his sons Baruch, Mechel, Joachim and Mojzesz, along with Golda Grunfeld and her sister Lea Didner with her little daughter Reszla, according to Poland’s state Institute of National Remembrance, IPN, which has meticulously documented the Ulmas’ story.

The Catholic Church faced a dilemma in beatifying Wiktoria’s unborn child and declaring it a martyr because, among other things, it had not been baptized, which is a requirement for beatification.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints issued a clarification saying the child was actually born during the horror of the killings and received “baptism by blood” of its martyred mother.

The clarification was issued Sept. 5 by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Vatican’s saint-making office. Semeraro is presiding over the beatification Mass, at which more than 30,000 participants from across Poland are expected. It is the first time that an entire family is being beatified.

Poland’s conservative ruling party has been stressing family values and also the heroism of Poles during the war and the beatification ceremony is a welcome addition to its intense political campaigning ahead of the Oct. 15 parliamentary elections in which the Law and Justice party wants to win an unprecedented third term.

The Ulma beatification poses several new theological concepts about the Catholic Church’s ideas of saints and martyrs that also have implications for the pro-life movement because of the baby in the mother’s womb, said the Rev. Robert Gahl, a professor of ethics at the Catholic University of America and Rome’s Pontifical Holy Cross University.

Perhaps because the concept of “beatification of a fetus” could be weaponized by the pro-life movement, the Vatican apparently felt it necessary to state that the child was “born” at the moment the mother was executed.

By stating that the child was actually born, the Vatican also affirmed that the killers intended to kill the child out of hatred for the faith, a requirement for a martyrdom and beatification declaration, Gahl told The Associated Press.

After beatification, a miracle attributed to the Ulmas’ intercession would be necessary for their eventual canonization, as the church’s sainthood process is called.

Israel’s Yad Vashem Institute in 1995 recognized the Ulmas as Righteous Among Nations who gave their lives trying to save Jews during the Holocaust.

In Poland, they are a symbol of the bravery of thousands of Poles who took the utmost risk while helping Jews. By the occupying Nazis’ decree, any assistance to Jews was punished with summary execution. A Museum of Poles Saving Jews During World War II was opened in Markowa in 2016.

Poland was the first country to be invaded by Nazi Germany, on Sept. 1, 1939. Some 6 million of its citizens were killed during the war, half of them Jews.
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Niger’s military regime, which took power in July, accused France of deploying forces in several West African countries with a view to “military intervention.” 

“France continues to deploy its forces in several ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) countries as part of preparations for an aggression against Niger, which it is planning in collaboration with this community organization,” regime spokesman Colonel Major Amadou Abdramane said in a statement broadcast on national television on Saturday. 

Relations with France, Niger’s former colonial power, degraded swiftly after Paris stood by ousted President Mohamed Bazoum following the July coup. 

The Sahel state is also embroiled in a standoff with the West African bloc ECOWAS, which has threatened to intervene militarily if diplomatic pressure to return Bazoum to office fails. 

On August 3, Niger’s coup leaders renounced several military cooperation agreements with France, which has about 1,500 soldiers stationed in the country as part of a wider fight against jihadis. 

On Tuesday, a Paris defense ministry source told AFP the French army was in talks with the military regime over withdrawing elements of its presence in Niger. 

On September 1, the regime said its chief of staff had “received the commander of French forces in the Sahel … to discuss a plan for the disengagement of French military capabilities.” 
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The body of a missing 77-year-old man was found Saturday, raising the death toll from floods in central Greece to 11, authorities said. The number of missing increased to six, but there could be more.

The man was living in the seaside village of Paltsi, in the mountainous Pelion peninsula situated between the Aegean Sea to the east and Pagasitikos gulf to the west. He had refused to leave his home, despite the entreaties of his wife, who evacuated. “I have been through storms,” he had told her.

The man’s body drifted in the Aegean, past the island of Skiathos, to another island, Evia, where it was found late Saturday, authorities said.

Pelion was hit by torrential rains Tuesday, with some locations reporting close to 76 centimeters of rain in less than a day. The rest of the region of Thessaly, to the west, was struck later Tuesday and again Wednesday and Thursday.

Another village near a major Greek city was ordered evacuated Saturday afternoon as authorities frantically shored up flood defenses against a rising river.

Rescue crews were evacuating stranded residents from areas already flooded elsewhere in Thessaly.

The village of Omorfochori, about 8 kilometers by road from the city of Larissa, Thessaly’s capital and largest city, was ordered evacuated by SMS alert due to the rising waters of the Pineios river. Residents were directed to a town to the southeast.

But the main concern remains that the already overflowing river could inundate Larissa itself, a city of around 150,000. Authorities placed tens of thousands of bags full of sand and pebbles along the river’s banks, while opening diversion channels west of the city.

The governor of Thessaly, Kostas Agorastos, was visiting the town of Palamas — one of the worst stricken areas in the southwest of the region — when he was evacuated by police Saturday afternoon. A small crowd of protesters had started shouting abuse at him and then jostled him, a video posted on social media showed.

Agorastos, a member of the ruling conservative New Democracy party, said Friday that local and regional elections cannot take place in Thessaly as scheduled on Oct. 8, with runoffs a week later. First elected governor in 2010, Agorastos is running for a fourth term.

The proximity of the local and regional polls has intensified the usual blame game from opposition parties eager to dent New Democracy’s supremacy that was confirmed in national elections in May and June. New Democracy controls 11 out of the country’s 13 regions.

But there has been much criticism about state and local authorities’ response to the latest disaster to hit Greece, hard on the heels of devastating wildfires.

The rescue response to the floods that resulted from torrential rains that hit the area from Tuesday to Thursday was negligible until early Thursday, while people were clinging to the roofs of their stricken homes, according to a report in Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini. The same paper reported Saturday that, of the Air Force’s 12 search-and-rescue Puma helicopters, only four are operational, with the rest either cannibalized for spare parts or grounded for so long that they can no longer fly.

There are also questions about the ability of regional and local authorities to deal with major crises, despite the expansion in responsibilities and funding under reforms enacted over a decade ago. 
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The United Russia political party headquarters in the Russian-occupied city of Polohy, Zaporizhzhia oblast, in Ukraine was destroyed Friday, The Kyiv Independent reported Saturday.

Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov announced the incident on Telegram. Federov said the Russians were “burned out” of the building. The incident coincided with the “hellish pseudo-elections” in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, he said.

Russia has claimed to annex Ukraine’s Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts.

Ukraine’s armed forces are making “gradual tactical advances” against Russia’s defensive line east of the town of Robotyne, the British Defense Ministry said Saturday in its daily intelligence update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The update, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, also indicated that it is “highly likely” Russia has taken forces from other areas of the front line “to replace degraded units” near Robotyne. The redeployments, the ministry said, are “likely limiting” Russia’s capacity for executing offensive operations in other frontline areas and are “highly likely” indicative of pressure on Russia’s defensive lines, especially around Robotyne.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in a letter last month that Russia would be eligible to apply for membership and access to the SWIFT banking system for food and fertilizer transactions.

The Russian Agricultural Bank subsidiary in Luxembourg could immediately apply to SWIFT to “effectively enable access” for the bank to the international payments system within 30 days, the United Nations told Russia in a letter, seen by Reuters on Friday.

In an effort to persuade Moscow to return to the U.N.-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative that had allowed the safe export through the Black Sea of Ukrainian grain, Guterres outlined four measures the United Nations could facilitate to improve Russia’s grain and fertilizer exports.

Guteres told Lavrov the U.N. was immediately ready to move on all measures “based on the clear understanding that their application would lead to the Russian Federation’s return to the Black Sea Initiative and the full resumption of operations.”

A key Russian demand has been the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank, Rosselkhozbank, to the SWIFT system. It was cut off by the European Union in June of last year after Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed skepticism in a statement Wednesday at the U.N. chief’s proposals.

“Instead of actual exemptions from sanctions, all Russia got was a new dose of promises from the U.N. Secretariat,” it said. “These recent proposals do not contain any new elements and cannot serve as a foundation for making any tangible progress in terms of bringing our agricultural exports back to normal.”

Russia exited the deal in July, a year after it was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey to combat a global food crisis the U.N. said was worsened by Russia’s invasion. Ukraine and Russia are both leading grain exporters.

In other developments, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin masterminded the death of Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in an unexplained plane crash with his top lieutenants last month.

Zelenskyy did not provide evidence to back up the claim he made in passing during a conference in Kyiv when he was asked a question about the Russian president.

“The fact that he killed Prigozhin — at least that’s the information we all have, not any other kind — that also speaks to his rationality, and about the fact that he is weak,” Zelenskyy said.

The Kremlin says all possible causes of the crash will be investigated, including the possibility of foul play. It has called the suggestion that Putin ordered the deaths of Prigozhin and his men an “absolute lie.”

Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny in Russia in June that Putin characterized as treasonous and a “stab in the back.”
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An international team of at least 150 rescuers gathered at a Turkish cave Friday and prepared to try to bring out a U.S. explorer who fell ill nearly a week ago while exploring more than 1,000 meters underground.

Mark Dickey, 40, was exploring Morca Cave near Anamur, Turkey, in the Taurus Mountains with a team of about 12 others last Saturday when he fell ill with what was determined to be internal bleeding.

At a depth of 1,040 meters, Dickey was unable to climb out on his own. The Turkish Caving Federation said the team alerted the European Cave Rescue Association.

A Hungarian rescue team that includes a doctor reached Dickey this week, was able to get him medicine and blood infusions, and was monitoring him at a base camp.

Dickey appeared in a video message that the rescuers recorded and released Friday. He appeared to be in good spirits but said he “was not healed on the inside yet” and would need a lot of help climbing out of the cave.

The head of the Turkish search-and-rescue team, Recep Salci, told the Reuters news agency Friday that Dickey was stable enough to be moved but that the operation would likely take several days.

Salci said that getting to Dickey’s location involves many narrow passages and descents where a rope must be used. Some areas can be accessed only by crawling.

Salci said it takes a healthy caver 12 hours to get down to the location and 16 hours to climb up. He said some areas would require explosives to widen.

Salci said many of the operations were already being carried out.

In his video message, Dickey thanked the Turkish government and others who reached him initially with medical supplies, which he said saved his life. He also thanked the international community of cave explorers who have responded.

The European Cave Rescue Association said teams from Turkey, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy and Poland arrived at the scene over the course of the last week. How long the rescue mission will take depends on whether Dickey will require a stretcher on the way out, Werner Zegler, the association’s vice president, told VOA in an interview.

Zegler estimated that it would take three or four days if Dickey did not need a stretcher and up to two weeks if he did. According to Zegler, there were more than 100 rescuers on site. If initial extraction efforts fail, more might be necessary, he said.

Ivana Konstantinovic of VOA’s Serbian Service contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Rescue crews have begun airlifting hundreds of people trapped in dozens of Greek hamlets after four days of cataclysmic rainfall left at least 7 people dead and an unknown number missing.

Rains from Daniel, the worst storm to hit Greece in 75 years, turned small streets in the country’s farming heartland of Thessaly into waterways that uprooted village huts. Rivers swelled, dams burst, and bridges broke.

Hardest hit has been the region of Karditsa, where six people, all elderly women and shepherds, were found under mounds of debris, washed away by floodwaters in their attempt to evacuate their homes. 

Officially, six people remain missing, but locals and crew contacted by VOA predict greater numbers. In the village of Palamas alone, on the outskirts of Karditsa, residents phoning into local TV stations spoke of more than 60 villagers missing on Friday.

Authorities liken the storm to what they call a “biblical catastrophe,” placing several parts of the Thessaly plain in a state of emergency, and allowing the country’s military to be called in to help on Thursday.

But by then, Daniel had wreaked unprecedented damage, and left the nation angry about the government’s delayed response. 

Emergency services on Friday were seen using divers, lifeboats and 80 all-weather military helicopters to reach stranded people across Thessaly, mainly in Karditsa.

Sofia, an elderly woman who managed to escape to a relative’s home, described the horror of her ordeal.

“I was left on the rooftop of my home for days before someone came with a plastic life raft and helped me down,” she said. “I would have drowned, because the water had reached 2 meters high.”

Like thousands of others in the region, Sofia said she received no notification to evacuate and seek safety on higher ground. 

“I am left with nothing. Zero,” she said. “The government now has to help us.”

Other farmers, including Christos Theodoropoulos, are mad.

“Nothing is left. Nothing,” he shouted. “No official has come to help us. I am embarrassed that this is 2023 and this has happened.”

In 2020, the region was hit by a ferocious cyclone. 

But since then, locals say authorities have failed to build necessary infrastructure to shield the region — leaving it, thousands of residents and livestock at the mercy of nature.  
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Russian authorities are holding local elections this weekend in occupied parts of Ukraine in an effort to tighten their grip on territories Moscow illegally annexed a year ago and still does not fully control.

The voting for Russian-installed legislatures in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions has already begun and concludes Sunday. It has been denounced by Kyiv and the West.

“It constitutes a flagrant violation of international law, which Russia continues to disregard,” the Council of Europe, the continent’s foremost human rights body, said this week.

Kyiv echoed that sentiment, with the parliament saying in a statement that the balloting in areas where Russia “conducts active hostilities” poses a threat to Ukrainian lives. Lawmakers urged other countries not to recognize the results of the vote.

For Russia — which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine 18 months ago — it is important to go on with the voting to maintain the illusion of normalcy, despite the fact that the Kremlin does not have full control over the annexed regions, political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said.

“The Russian authorities are trying hard to pretend that everything is going according to plan, everything is fine. And if everything is going according to plan, then the political process should go according to plan,” said Gallyamov, who worked as a speechwriter for Russian President Vladimir Putin when Putin served as prime minister.

Voters are supposed to elect regional legislatures, which in turn will appoint regional governors. In the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, thousands of candidates are also competing for seats on dozens of local councils.

The balloting is scheduled for the same weekend as other local elections in Russia. In the occupied regions, early voting kicked off last week as election officials went door to door or set up makeshift polling stations in public places to attract passersby.

The main contender in the election is United Russia, the Putin-loyal party that dominates Russian politics, although other parties, such as the Communist Party and the nationalist Liberal Democratic party, are also on the ballots.

For some residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, large swaths of which have been held by Russian-backed separatists since 2014, there is nothing unusual about the vote.

“For the last nine years, we’ve been striving to get closer with Russia, and Russian politicians are well-known to us,” Sergei, a 47-year-old resident of the occupied city of Luhansk, told The Associated Press, asking that his last name be withheld for security reasons. “We’re speaking Russian and have felt like part of Russia for a long time, and these elections only confirm that.”

Some voters in Donetsk shared Sergei’s sentiment, expressing love for Russia and saying they want to be part of it.

The picture appears bleaker in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Local residents and Ukrainian activists say poll workers make house calls accompanied by armed soldiers, and most voters know little about the candidates, up to half of whom reportedly arrived from Russia — including remote regions in Siberia and the far east.

“In most cases, we don’t know these Russian candidates, and we’re not even trying to figure it out,” said Konstantin, who currently lives in the Russian-held part of the Kherson region on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River.

Using only his first name for safety reasons, Konstantin said in a phone interview that billboards advertising Russian political parties have sprung up along the highways, and сampaign workers have been bused in ahead of the vote.

But “locals understand that these elections don’t influence anything” and “are held for Russian propaganda purposes,” Kostantin said, comparing this year’s vote to the referendums Moscow staged last year in the four partially occupied regions.

Those referendums were designed to put a veneer of democracy on the annexation. Ukraine and the West denounced them as a sham and decried the annexation as illegal.

Weeks after the referendums, Russian troops withdrew from the city of Kherson, the capital of the region of the same name, and areas around it, ceding them back to Ukraine. As a result, Moscow has maintained control of about 70% of the region.

Three other regions are also only partially occupied, and Kyiv’s forces have managed to regain more land — albeit slowly and in small chunks — during their summer counteroffensive.

In the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, where the counteroffensive efforts are focused, Moscow-installed authorities declared a holiday on Friday for the voting.

The Russian-appointed governor of the annexed region, Yevgeny Balitsky, noted in a recent statement that 13 front-line cities and villages in the region come under regular shelling, but he expressed hope that despite the difficulties, the United Russia party “will get the result it deserves.”

Ivan Fyodorov, Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, a Russian-held city in the Zaporizhzhia region, told The Associated Press that local residents are effectively being forced to vote.

“When there’s an armed person standing in front of you, it’s hard to say no,” he said.

Early in the war, Fyodorov was kidnapped by Russian troops and held in captivity. He moved to Ukrainian-controlled territory upon release.

There are four different parties on the ballot, the mayor said, but billboards advertise only one — United Russia. “It looks like the Russian authorities know the result (of the election) already,” Fyodorov said.

The city’s population of 60,000 — down from 149,000 before the war — has been subject to enhanced security in the days leading up to the election, according to Fyodorov. Authorities stop people in the streets to check their identification documents and detain anyone who looks suspicious, he said.

“People are intimidated and scared, because everyone understands that an election in an occupied city is like voting in prison,” Fyodorov said.

Russian authorities aim to have up to 80% of the population take part in the early voting, according to the Eastern Human Rights Group, a Ukrainian rights group that monitors the vote in the occupied territories.

Poll workers go door to door — to markets, grocery stores and other public places — to get people to cast ballots. Both those who have gotten Russian citizenship and those still holding Ukrainian passports are allowed to vote.

Those who refuse to vote are being detained for three or four hours, the group’s coordinator, Pavlo Lysianskyi, said. The authorities make them “write an explanatory statement, which later becomes grounds for a criminal case against the person.”

Lysianskyi’s group has counted at least 104 cases of Ukrainians being detained in occupied regions for refusing to take part in the vote.

In the end, Gallyamov, the Russian analyst, said Russian authorities will not get “anything good in terms of boosting their legitimacy” in the occupied regions.
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