The Russians secretly changed half of the composition of the “legislative assembly” of the Zaporizhzhia region

The Russian Federation continues to prove by its actions that Russia is a totalitarian country in which there is no place for democracy, free will of citizens and accountability of the government to the population. The situation in the occupied Ukrainian territories is no exception.

On September 12, 2023, the Kremlin held fictitious “elections” and formed a quasi-parliament “Legislative Assembly of the Zaporizhzhia  Region.” The Moscow curators included 40 “deputies” in the composition of this illegal body. The vast majority of them – 34 – were representatives of Putin’s party “United Russia”, another 2 mandates were allocated to the CPRF, LDPR and “Just Russia”.

After that, a phenomenon that is unacceptable for civilized countries began – the Russians began to change the composition of the “legislative assembly” supposedly “elected” by the population at their own discretion. At the same time, they do not consider it necessary to inform the “voters” (with the exception of one case, when Dmitry Vorona from Donetsk was appointed “senator” and he was replaced by Stepan Kuvachev, a citizen of the Russian Federation from the city of Zheleznovodsk, Stavropol Territory).

Four “deputies” Serhii Yurchenko, Darya Zinchenko, Anna Aleinova and Oleksiy Efremov appeared out of nowhere. But they are not the only ones whom the Kremlin curators introduced to the “assembly” outside the election process – there are 15 more such people.

These are the representatives of the Russian party “United Russia” Vladyslav Ashcheulov, Viktor Betin, the director of the Melitopol Museum of Local History Yevhen Horlachev, the director of the Melitopol Children’s and Youth Sports School No. 3 Roman Doloman, Kostyantyn Zaitsev (chairman of the committee on culture, sports and youth policy “zaksobraniya” ), Viktor Zubrytskyi, Oleksandr Kucherkov, Maksym Lyubezny, chief physician of the Melitopol phthisiopulmonary center Lyudmila Novikova, Veronika Rozhkova, Anna Skyba, head of the occupation administration of the Melitopol district Andriy Siguta (already convicted of treason to 15 years in prison), Vladyslav Stepanov and the owner of a security company Anton Tarantinov from the Russian city of Orel.