Ukraine

Speaker 1

Why are we in such a shithole?

Speaker 2

We are not asking the state for help; we demand that they do not interfere.

Speaker 3

Let's crush the oligarchs who show pity in the war. The enemy must be destroyed.

Speaker 4

The candidates did not show up at our studio.

Speaker 3

Kingdom

Speaker 5

Make way for freedom.

Speaker 3

I call upon everyone, and Kholostovoy with Donbas.

Speaker 6

Stop the vampires' ecstasy!

Наталья Неделько

Russia is organizing sham elections for the State Duma of the RF on the occupied territories of Ukraine for the first time. Previously, before 2022, residents of Donbas with Russian passports were taken to vote in Rostov. Now, however, deputies will be elected locally. September 18 to 20 are the official voting days. But in reality, it is already underway, including in the occupied Donbas. Who does the Kremlin propose represent Donbas in the Russian parliament? And how is Russia campaigning for people to go to the elections? This is what we will discuss today in the project Mozhem Posmotret. My name is Natalia Nedelko, I am a journalist for the project Donbas Realities and Radio Liberty. And beside me is my colleague Egor Loginov, a frontline correspondent for Donbas Realities. Hello, Egor.

Speaker 7

Matash, hi. And also with us today is our junior research fellow, a regular participant in our discussions, Artem Sergeyevich.

Наталья Неделько

Egor, I want to start with the most visible thing, with the campaigning and advertising of those parties that are running in the State Duma elections and which call themselves the opposition to the party of power. Let's see what they are demonstrating. Very

Speaker 8

Curious, go ahead.

Speaker 4

Once upon a time, there lived an evil spirit in the world called inflation.

Speaker 8

A beautiful fairy tale. But the reality is different. The Central Bank is hiking the rate. Rising tariffs for gasoline and utilities. And all this is topped off by the monopoly of retail chains. Justice is strict price control.

Speaker 3

Let's cut down the oligarchs living off the war. Let's build a dignified life for the working people. For this, socialism is needed. The enemy must be destroyed. There are no other options.

Speaker 2

And it cannot be. We are not asking the state for help. We demand that we not be hindered. And then we will do everything so that Russia wins. Let business breathe.

Speaker 5

Kingdom of freedom, we will pave the way for ourselves with our chests.

Наталья Неделько

This is simply a stunning hybrid of the MMM advertisement about Lenya Golubkov from my childhood and some Soviet propaganda film like "The Steel Swore." I am very curious as to what target audience this advertisement is aimed at, considering that today's Gen Z is unlikely to understand what it is even about. That is, it is clear that we, I think, will repeatedly say today that this is still a fiction, but the approach itself, of course, is brilliant. I really like it.

Наталья Неделько

this. This,

Speaker 7

You know, sorry, everything has been done so that they don't vote for these parties.

Наталья Неделько

I would like to say that what unites them all is that the people appearing in them look extremely aggressive; they are demanding something, they are irritated by something, dissatisfied with something. And this is a general trend of these opposition videos. In contrast to them, there are videos from United Russia, a party that shows two types of videos there. Let's take a look.

Speaker 7

Yes, very

Speaker 4

interesting

Speaker 10

will be to compare,

Speaker 10

Different generations are working toward a common cause. Here, the strength of each becomes the strength of the country. Together we remember, together we work, together we grow, together we move forward.

Speaker 4

And we

Speaker 10

we know, when we are united, we are invincible.

Наталья Неделько

There is this feeling here, a kind of belonging to something great, something big, something creative; these kinds of people work together, they labor together, they are happy. And then there are these kinds of videos.

Speaker 9

Have a seat, repatabs. Hello. Hello. It's me.

Speaker 4

I made it myself.

Speaker 9

I watched. There.

Speaker 11

And Vladimir, how much did you bring?

Speaker 4

These are Dagestani kurze, and these are Buryat buz. Kastabay.

Speaker 11

Kastabay.

Speaker 4

Kastabay.

Speaker 2

My friends, help yourselves.

Speaker 10

Belonging to different cultures, sharing common values. This is unity.

Speaker 7

Look, there are some very interesting points here. First of all, it is clear that new politicians have worked here. In the first case, they worked specifically only in a negative sense. And here there is this general idea; a parallel is drawn to a united Russia, a united people, yes, the country of Russia, a rather multiethnic country, meaning everything is being done to unite the current empire, which is called the Russian Federation, under one flag, with the same values. It's like saying, we are all together, let's not lose this unity and let's continue on our correct path. That's it.

Наталья Неделько

Well, look, it turns out that there are videos about United Russia. These are videos about such positive people whose lives are going well, they relax, have fun, make friends, and sit together at a table. And then there is some kind of varied, eternally dissatisfied position. And it seems that, on one hand, the parties are represented, but on the other hand, there is a complete feeling that something is wrong with the opposition and that, in reality, there is no alternative besides United Russia.

Speaker 7

Well, I think you understand that this is the point, right, I mean, Russia still wants to show the international community that it remains a democratic state, that there is a lot of polarity in the elections, some kind of choice, some parties, but, naturally, all of this is done, it's all a fiction, and all this is done in order to,

Speaker 7

show, look, that we have a ruling party, there are these rather comical, comic semblances of some political forces, so that people,

Speaker 7

Even those people who do not want to vote for United Russia have essentially understood that they don't really have a choice. This is a political technology that has been used many times, including here—you understand perfectly well what I am talking about—in the late 90s; that is, when the choice is between the bad and the very bad, you will choose the bad.

Наталья Неделько

Besides this kind of outdoor advertising, there are also debates on television.

Speaker 7

Even

Speaker 4

debates. This is the time allocated for candidates for deputy, who can somehow present their party and their program at this moment. And in fact, very often in Russian broadcasts, hosts encounter situations like these. Let's take a look.

Speaker 9

This is joint

Speaker 4

campaign event of candidates for deputies of the State Duma of the 9th Convocation for the 158th electoral district. The candidates did not appear in our studio, so I bid you farewell. Representatives of the "New People", "United Russia", "Greens", and CPRF parties were supposed to come to the studio. However, representatives of three

Speaker 9

parties did not go on air, and a representative of the KPRF is participating.

Наталья Неделько

It turns out that many representatives of various parties, these deputies, simply ignore it and do not appear on air and do not talk about their programs.

Speaker 7

At least, it is presented that way and seems kind of natural, although, of course, it is not. And you know, another very interesting point that struck me in these campaign videos, both from "United Russia" and in those of the rivals' sketches, there isn't a single word about the war, did you notice? That is, it's all purely economic; well, "victory" is too, you know, such a general concept, but here there is stuff about the economy, letting businesses develop, lifting up the working class, but there isn't a single frame with Russian soldiers, Russian military in uniform, with an assault rifle, launching drones there; meaning an illusion is created that in Russia and in the occupied territories, which Russia considers its own, everything is fine. So the only problems that we supposedly need to eliminate are the economy, I don't know, some things related to personal growth, and so on, for every person, and so on and so forth.

Наталья Неделько

Yeah, in official advertising they practically try to ignore the war.

Speaker 7

And this is even more absurd against the backdrop of the conditions in which the residents of the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine live every day. That is, from my point of view, it looks very absurd.

Наталья Неделько

Let's watch some more debates, what the deputies are saying.

Speaker 1

I'll read this occasionally so I don't start swearing. I look at these profiles speaking beautiful phrases from the manuals written by expensive political consultants, and I understand why we are in such a hole.

Speaker 4

Actually, this speech… This, by the way,

Speaker 7

who?

Speaker 4

This is, by the way, a deputy from the Rodina party, also, just like Zhuravlev, meaning these are quite aggressive people who tell the blunt truth,

Speaker 7

let's say

Speaker 4

okay, on air. Well, and then at the 8-minute mark, during this speech, he did eventually resort to swearing, and there was a lot more there… Well, not a speech,

Speaker 7

reading from a piece of paper,

Speaker 4

you see that he

Speaker 7

unable to utter even

Speaker 4

a few sentences on your own. There are also some slightly different options.

Speaker 6

Me

Speaker 7

I wonder which oligarchs they are talking about in these campaign videos; Zyuganov mentioned them as well. No, look, these are the communists.

Speaker 4

of Russia on the very

Speaker 7

fact. Are there oligarchs in Russia?

Speaker 4

Well, of course, of course, there are oligarchs, they are even noticed, yes, and that is what the company builds on. But here it turns out that for the candidate—throughout the whole debate he was given the floor three times, three times he sang different songs, campaigning… A musical approach. A musical approach,

Speaker 4

this Oleg Likhachev, he previously wrote a rather flattering song for the ruling party, which was called "Vladimir Putin is a good man," he also performed it himself, and then…

Speaker 7

Unfortunately, I've had to hear,

Speaker 4

Yes, and then it turned out that he is now an opposition figure, changed his role and sings about the oligarch. Why do you think the opposition in Russia and these debates look like a show, and in principle, well, look, well, funny, probably.

Speaker 7

No, basically,

Speaker 7

It is absolutely clear, as I have already said, that it is necessary to show some semblance that this is not a totalitarian state, that the elections are fair, and that there is competition and rivalry among them,

Speaker 7

Right, but everyone understands perfectly exactly how these elections will end, and that, in principle, any figures will be fabricated in the office of the head of the office of the President of the Russian Federation, while all this, as you say, is a show—so flashy, often absurd, very funny,

Speaker 7

Well, I don't know, the image is probably for the West, which, for those people, who there still believe that, that Russia is a democratic state.

Speaker 4

You know, well, what else caught my attention is that in the occupied Luhansk region and the occupied Donetsk region, they come to the debates with the most serious faces and present their programs as candidates for deputies with utmost seriousness. And so I want to ask you, do people in the occupied part of Ukraine, specifically in the so-called LPR and DPR, really believe in the honesty and fairness of these elections and, essentially, really compete in the voting?

Speaker 7

I think that most people do not believe it and perfectly understand everything that is happening, especially those who lived in the unoccupied Ukrainian Donbas before 2014. They have a point of comparison—how Donetsk or Luhansk, for example, lived before then and what they have turned into now. Therefore, I think that, of course, particularly emotional, ideological people will come and vote, but I think that the majority of the population of the occupied Donbas will simply ignore these elections. The necessary figures will then be easily fabricated. It seems to me that a huge number of people simply will not want to take part in this farce.

Speaker 4

Let's ask our viewers to write to us in the comments: if you are watching us in the occupied part of Ukraine, will you go to vote in these pseudo-elections, which Ukraine and the Western World do not recognize? Do you believe that they will bring something useful, for example, to Donbas or the Luhansk region? And if you do not go, again, explain why you will not go. But let's see anyway what is happening in the occupied part, what is going on there with the elections. I will say first that I noticed that a lot of attention was paid there to notifying people that these elections would take place. That is, literally from house to house, from apartment to apartment, people in special clothing went around, knocked on doors, and notified them. And as the so-called local election commission reported, they notified practically 100% of the population.

Speaker 5

Naturally.

Speaker 4

And they also paid great attention to the youth. They campaigned, met with students, campaigned, wanted them to vote. This first vote in their lives.

Speaker 7

For these first batches,

Speaker 4

which were sort of,

Speaker 7

for them

Speaker 4

They were campaigning. Well, they were campaigning to go to the elections, so to speak. You know, in reality, the elections have already started there. That is, if we are talking about the 18th and 20th being the official dates, then early elections are permitted in the occupied territories. And these early elections are already taking place. Residents are voting as they wish. They can change their polling station, they can vote at home, in the courtyard.

Speaker 7

That is, time frames

Speaker 4

no, right? They vote until the 17th, and the 18th, 19th, 20th – those are already the official elections, when they can come to the polling station. Let's see how such voting happens.

Speaker 12

Early voting for deputies of the State Duma has officially started in Gorlovka. Despite the tense operational situation, mobile teams are operating as usual, visiting citizens with limited mobility and those residents who expressed a desire to cast their vote at home. All the details will be shown and told on the "Vesti Donetsk" broadcast on the TV channel.

Speaker 6

"Russia".

Speaker 7

You even understand why this is happening, right? Well

Speaker 4

Look, a checkered bag with a ballot box, two or at most three voting sheep that I saw, and a portable screen they set up somewhere in the bushes, near the entrance or under a tree, and people vote there.

Speaker 7

Natasha, this is what I was talking about at the beginning, that the turnout in these elections—real, actual turnout, from my point of view—will be minimal. And so, to somehow force, just force, well, not in a compulsory manner, but in a sort of voluntarily-compulsory manner, people to vote, they come to them with these ballot boxes and say—they understand that at the polling station, the so-called one, no one, still no one, or rather a significant part of the people, will come, and so they try at home at least, they ask these people to vote, so that there are at least some results. I think it's not even about the results here, just about the image, the fact that it is happening, because if they film empty polling stations on election days, it will look, well, at least strange, probably.

Speaker 4

It is curious that campaigning is still taking place at this time, in parallel; that is, the elections have not yet officially begun, yet people are already voting. The head of the electoral commission of the so-called DNR reported that, for example, in 2024, when Putin's elections were held, between 90 and 94 percent of residents voted in this manner, and this year…

Speaker 7

Who were leaving for Rostov then, accordingly

Speaker 4

or…

Speaker 4

these were Putin's elections. That's it, I understand. These are different elections. But the voting method was the same. And 90-94 percent of people voted in exactly this way. Why do you think the residents of Donbas choose early voting specifically? I

Speaker 7

I think they simply won't be able to create such a vivid propaganda image of people coming to polling stations and standing in line. Firstly, there aren't that many people in the occupied Donbas. And secondly, to show any kind of image of these many tired, wounded, and dissatisfied people, you would need at least this kind of ballot-box campaigning. You see, so that the election process itself—just to show it somehow, to depict it somehow.

Speaker 4

Well, maybe that's how turnout can still be ensured. I mean, when you've come to people and knocked on the door, they've kind of got nowhere else to go, let's vote.

Speaker 7

Well, naturally. Although I don't think it's… I think that, in the end, it's more about the television image. They can fake whatever turnout and results they want, that much is clear. But the visuals of people participating in the process, which will then be broadcast on Russian TV channels and on channels in the occupied territories, that is absolutely necessary. Without the television image, present-day Russia cannot exist.

Speaker 4

Well, and here we don't see any observers, not even fake ones. At least from different parties. That is, there are just three people walking around here with a briefcase.

Speaker 7

On trust, Natasha, everything happens on trust.

Speaker 4

Alright. Also, military personnel vote early. Information about them is even more closed. Sometimes they show, but very little, some separately filmed reports about how the military are indeed voting somewhere there on the front lines, or expressing their will. And what Russian Z-bloggers, for example, write about this voting. This is a Z-blogger who has been mobilized. He is writing about the elections. They did indeed start in advance. And a joke appeared about the specifics of voting in the active army: for a well-known, not particularly popular political party or for assaults.

Speaker 7

Well, look, this is what I was talking about before. There are no messages to the military in these campaign promotional videos. Neither the current authorities, nor the existing power, nor the so-called opposition parties address them. In other words, it's as if they don't exist at all. There is no war, there are no military personnel. Why do you think that is? To be honest, listen, I don't know why that's the case. It looks quite absurd, given the general background of the war until a victorious end, until the root causes are eliminated, as the military-political leadership of the Russian Federation has repeatedly stated. Why is there no war and no military in all these important processes? That is the question.

Speaker 4

Look, Russian speakers also very often use the phrase that Russia is a democratic state, despite the fact that the front is close, there are shellings, and so on. Elections are held; this democratic process exists. Both military personnel and civilians vote. But in Ukraine, there are no elections; power has been usurped by one person. And, essentially, it is a completely undemocratic country. What can be argued against this?

Speaker 7

One can object quite simply. The Constitution, which does not allow holding elections during wartime.

Speaker 4

Let's now look at who has been proposed to represent Donbas in the Russian parliament, who the people, the residents of the occupied territories can vote for. I will say that there are two lists. There is a federal list, which all of Russia votes for. We are not talking about it right now. There are regional lists. These are the, so to speak, party deputies that the local people are supposed to vote for. Who, then, will represent Donbas? And not just Donbas, but the entire occupied part. Because the parties took a route where they combined these lists. So to speak, the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions, and the occupied part of Kherson. They all vote for a single list. Let's look at the United Russia list. It is headed by a Russian citizen, a current deputy of the State Duma of the RF, Viktor Vodoladsky. A well-known figure in the Luhansk region since 2014. He visits there constantly. He was some kind of Cossack ataman in the past. He oversaw the Luhansk region. I have been noted that in 1922 he gave orders to Russian military to shell Ukrainian territories. That is,

Speaker 4

…is even convicted in absentia in Ukraine. This person is the leader of the United Russia party list in the occupied territories. Following him is Tatyana Voskalkova. Plenipotentiary to the President of Russia for Human Rights. That was her previous position; she has now left that position and is running in the elections. Also a person absolutely not connected to Donbas in any way. Next on this list is Vyacheslav Nikonov. He is the grandson of the Soviet People's Commissar Molotov. He is also currently a serving deputy of the State Duma of Russia. Also a Russian, a Muscovite, and not connected to Donbas in any way. Next is Vladimir Kosatonov, an admiral, a serving admiral of the Russian army, a military man. And also not connected to Donbas in any way. And only in fifth place is a native of Lugansk, a local, so to speak, Yan Leshchenko. A collaborator who has fought on Russia's side since 2014, against Ukraine. And has effectively already built a political career in the so-called parliament of the LNR/DNR. And so they put him fifth, closing out this list. I just don't understand, are there no people of their own in Donbas?

Speaker 7

They don't trust, you see. Well, I mean, they don't trust anymore, there, hypothetically, with Boroday or

Speaker 4

Zakharchenko. We have repeatedly said that outsiders are being sent. And there are actually many people running further down the list who arrived there in '14 and built local party cells. And now they are, so to speak, locals who are also running in the elections. But in reality, they are not locals. But some of them are indeed locals, though they are far from the top of the list.

Speaker 7

Listen, I think this is a general trend that has been evident for a long time. Just recently, one of the Russian officials was already talking about how we were successfully replacing the local population with people from Russia who were arriving. That is, this apparently concerns not only ordinary mortals, but also the so-called political elite in Donbas. In other words, now they will be emigrants.

Speaker 4

Russia sent both heads of cities and heads of some district administrations. That is, any bosses, any officials, and replaced personnel with them, who…

Speaker 7

That is, for some reason, their own people can no longer be appointed to these positions. That is why they are sending these kinds of import substitutions.

Speaker 4

And notice that neither the heads of the so-called republics nor those of these occupied regions—none of them were included in these specific electoral lists. That is, they remained simply officials.

Speaker 7

Well yes, given the strict hierarchy that exists in Russia—in the Russian government, in the executive and legislative branches—it seems to me that this is a very telling step, showing that more and more trust will be given, and power in the occupied territories will be increasingly seized by native Russians, let's call them that.

Speaker 4

Let's look at the majoritarian candidates as well. There are people there who are interesting to us. You already mentioned Borodai, Alexander Borodai, the man who called himself the first prime minister of the DNR. He is also currently a sitting deputy of the State Duma, he is also a Russian, he has been fighting since 1914, and he is running in a majoritarian district in Donetsk. And in this same district, his competitor was Sergey Zakharchenko. This is the son of that Alexander Zakharchenko, who was allegedly the head of the DNR in his time, the one who was killed in a restaurant—remember that story. So this Sergey Zakharchenko, he ran from the CPRF. And then at the end of the summer, he was removed from the elections, as if for some insignificant violation in filling out the documents. That's approximately how it sounded. And Z-bloggers are already writing about this. For example, Sergey Zakharchenko had every chance to crush the Moscow favorite. The victory of Zakharchenko's son would have deprived Borodai of his deputy status and overall would have changed the previously agreed-upon results for United Russia in the DNR. As they write on social media, strong pressure was put on Sergey Zakharchenko; he was forced to withdraw from the election race.

Speaker 7

Look, from my point of view, this is a very important marker of what is happening now, because Donetsk, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, before the start of the full-scale war, did not so much have some kind of independence as they had some status of a certain, let's call it, autonomy, where local natives from the Luhansk region, from the Luhansk oblast, from the Donetsk oblast, were elected and led these pseudo-republics; but starting from 1922, when these territories were effectively declared part of Russia—not as a People's Republic within the Russian Federation, but as part of Russia—then all of this, let's say, all this local heroism must be removed, painted over as much as possible, arrivals must be placed here, arrivals—Russians—managing these territories, in order to depersonalize Donbas as much as possible, its, let's say, not so much Ukrainian-ness, but at least some kind of autonomy within the Russian Federation, and now all of this is being erased by such a political eraser and simply becomes part of Russia with arriving leaders. This political separatism, let's call it that, is currently unacceptable because such republics of Ukraine do not exist at all in the opinion of the current military-political leadership of the Russian Federation.

Speaker 4

And so the bottom-feeder bloggers continue; Comrade Artem, in particular, writes that this is all one needs to know about the show elections, meaning the bottom-feeders themselves are saying that these elections are a show; power is held firmly in the hands of the oligarchy and Dem Russia, their tool, and he will give nothing to anyone, not even to spoilers pretending that there is multi-party politics in the RF, not a single seat in the Duma, except for those they allocated themselves. That is to say, it would seem that this isn't even an opposition. Look,

Speaker 7

the only opposition party, Yabloko,

Speaker 7

she placed peace at the core of her campaign program, meaning, let us be against the war and establish peace; there were absolutely no harsh points there, there were no accusations against the current authorities, just such an abstract white dove flying in the sky, and even then they removed her from these elections. In the absence of options.

Speaker 4

and the KPRF is fish, right?

Speaker 7

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 4

By the way, these battles have escalated in earnest, because some time later a retaliation hit Boroda, and just a few days ago a report was filed with the prosecutor's office against Alexander Boroda; he is accused of organizing a scheme for illegal collections of funds from servicemen, which, according to information from fellow servicemen, Boroda subsequently spent on his election campaign; that is, in Russia, a person can be removed from an election for some violation, and this is apparently such an attempt—since he tried to remove someone, it seems to me, it is an attempt to play this story back in this direction. After all, are they trying to conduct some kind of struggle in Donbas politically? Well…

Speaker 7

You see, even potential rivals are being eliminated, those who could influence the list of people who are supposed to enter the State Duma, yes, which has long since been approved, I am more than sure of it, meaning those who could spoil this overall picture, even potential ones who are absolutely loyal, people who seem to be their own, like Boroday; they are simply eliminated from the election process using such methods, in this way.

Speaker 4

In the neighboring district, another United Russia candidate is running who is interesting to us: Irina Kuksenkova. She is a Channel One journalist, a former resident of Kyiv; by the way, her family left Ukraine and moved to Russia back in 2013. This is Irina Kuksenkova. As we know, if you remember, right before the start of the full-scale invasion, a story aired on Russia's Channel One about allegedly discovered documents in the SU, found in the DPR, according to which Ukraine wanted to attack Donbas and capture it by military force. And after the publication of these documents in this story by Irina Kuksenkova, the claims began that people needed to be evacuated to Russia, that Ukraine was shelling Donbas, and that Russia had to step in for these young Donetsk and Luhansk republics and take them under its wing. In other words, this "plant" that spun up the full-scale invasion effectively began with Irina Kuksenkova. By the way, she is linked to General Alekseev of Russian intelligence, who was the target of an assassination attempt not long ago. Irina Kuksenkova, as you can see, has built a significant political career over these years; from simple reporting stories, she moved to activities surrounding the so-called SVO, engages in various volunteering efforts, received an award from Putin, and now represents the United Russia party. And so she does many various good deeds, like any deputy, performing acts of kindness, transporting things to the front.

Speaker 5

Before the elections.

Speaker 4

Distributing humanitarian aid, visiting pensioners, and so on. What do you think they are bringing Donetsk pensioners as buckwheat now?

Speaker 7

This is quite a tricky question. Into the water? In plastic bottles?

Speaker 4

You guessed right. Egor, Irina Kuksenkova,

Speaker 4

…is visiting a pensioner, you see, and another pensioner, and they bring drinking water to these pensioners. This is the kind of care from the People's Front, represented by Irina Kuksenkova, for the people in Donbas. That is, now only water remains.

Speaker 7

They tried to solve the issue systematically, or perhaps in their campaign speeches they said that if we win, we will finally provide

Speaker 4

water in Donbas? Everyone in Donbas promises this water. All parties say that it is a problem, we see it, we want to solve it. I wanted to show, for example, how one of the parties running in the elections,

Speaker 4

a small party, but represented in the Russian parliament, how it responds to the topics of water and the problems with water that exist in Donbas.

Speaker 11

Alongside the prolonged water crisis, active construction is underway, and new buildings and residential complexes are being erected. Of course, this is great. Life is returning to Donetsk, and the city is experiencing development; however, the problem lies elsewhere. Due to the new facilities, water consumption is increasing, which means the load on the old pipes, which are already falling apart, is increasing.

Speaker 4

That is, notice how the emphasis has shifted. There is no water not because Russia destroyed the water pipeline, but there is no water because Donbas is developing now, new houses are being built, and the old, dilapidated pipes that remained from Ukraine simply cannot cope and are falling apart. What is to be done?

Speaker 7

Instead of building a new water pipeline…

Speaker 4

Let's see what needs to be done.

Speaker 11

Consequently, there will only be more accidents. The New People's Party is proposing to implement smart digital control in housing and communal services in Russia. It will allow for the tracking of every single pipe from production to installation. This will be a fight not against the consequences, but against the cause of the problem.

Speaker 4

So, the cause of the problem is that the pipes have not been digitized. Is that how I understand it, yes? That is, we essentially need to monitor the pipes from production to installation. And then it will be a fight against the root cause of the lack of wait-time.

Speaker 7

Well, this is certainly, of course, a wonderful pre-election move. Well, I'm auditing, of course. In fact, as you correctly say, magnificent. Very subtly shifted accents from the essence of the problems.

Speaker 4

That is all we wanted to tell you today about the elections being held by Russia in the occupied Donbas. If you are watching us from the occupied territories, write to us whether you will participate in such a vote. And what it could bring to the occupied territories. And if you do not, please explain why. I will only remind you that Ukraine, international organizations, and Western countries do not recognize any voting conducted by Russia on the territory of Ukraine.

Speaker 7

And if you do end up going to the elections, maybe you have your own favorites? Write about that too. It will be very interesting to compare the situation after all and

Speaker 7

how will it all end. My name is Egor Loginov, see you!