Russia Holds First Parliamentary Vote in Illegally Annexed Ukrainian Territories

In a move that blurs the line between military occupation and civic permanence, Russia extended its parliamentary elections to four Ukrainian regions it annexed in 2022 — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson — marking the first time ballots were cast in these contested lands since the full-scale invasion began. The act is less about democracy than about architecture: Moscow is constructing the institutional scaffolding of sovereignty over territory the world does not recognize as its own. It is a reminder that modern conflicts are won not only on battlefields, but in the slow, deliberat