The Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) announced on December 11 that Russia will conduct voting for the 2024 presidential election in occupied Ukraine, likely in an attempt to legitimize the Russian occupation and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule, according to the report of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

“Russia will likely use the March 2024 presidential election to further establish a veneer of legitimacy for its occupation of Ukraine as it has done during the illegal 2022 annexation referenda and the 2023 regional elections … The CEC will likely use these differing procedures to falsify votes in Putin’s favor and claim a high voter turnout while falsely portraying occupied Ukraine’s participation in the election as legitimate to the international community,” the message reads.

Russian authorities have increasingly conducted mass detentions of migrants, during which Russian authorities have served those with Russian citizenship military summonses and have threatened to revoke Russian citizenship from naturalized migrants if they refuse to serve in the Russian military. Russian authorities have also targeted migrants without Russian citizenship in crypto-mobilization efforts by proposing restrictions on the actions and job opportunities of foreign citizens in Russia, advertising Russian military contract service in Central Asian languages, and coercing migrants into contract service in exchange for Russian citizenship

ISW assesses that the Russian government continues to struggle to reconcile the incoherent and competing objectives of exploiting migrant labor to alleviate Russian labor shortages and prioritizing crypto-mobilization efforts to send migrants to the frontline. Russian authorities are also likely using these measures to appease Russian ultranationalists who generally oppose the inclusion of migrants into the Russian economy and society.