The 2023 elections in Russian-occupied Ukraine took place on 8–10 September 2023, on common election day, one year after the Russian annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
The results were largely rejected by the international community, with North Korea and Syria being the only ones to explicitly recognise them.
Ukrainian human rights activists have claimed that about half of the candidates and also of registered voters were citizens of the Russian Federation who had never lived in Ukraine before 2022.
There, their votes were observed by armed police bussed in from Russia.
[4] The Council of Europe denounced the election in the occupied territories as "a flagrant violation of international law.