“pseudo-observers provocateurs” are being trained abroad for the autumn elections – Kommersant

The head of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, Vasily Piskarev, announced that “pseudo-observers-provocateurs” were being trained abroad to discredit the elections in Russia. According to him, the relevant materials have already been submitted to the Prosecutor General’s Office.

“According to available information, provocations are being prepared at polling stations in order to create a “necessary” picture for foreign media. For example, for this outside our country, one of the organizations recognized as extremist in Russia conducted training for pseudo-observers provocateurs. Materials regarding the organizers and participants of the training were transferred to the CEC of the Russian Federation and the Prosecutor General’s Office,”— informed Mr Piskarev. Where exactly this training took place, Mr. Piskarev did not disclose.

Vasily Piskarev also said that the State Duma commission headed by him to investigate the facts of foreign interference in the affairs of the Russian Federation recorded “numerous attempts by bodies of unfriendly states to discredit the decisions of the Central Election Commission” on the appointment of elections in new regions (DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions). In addition, according to the deputy, on the eve of the September regional elections and the start of the presidential campaign, “destructive activity is being recorded” to discredit the electoral system of the Russian Federation by individuals and media recognized as foreign agents, as well as “undesirable and extremist organizations.”

Elections of governors, local parliaments and by-elections of State Duma deputies will be held in Russia on September 8-10 (a single voting day is scheduled for September 10). In particular, for the first time elections will be held for regional legislative assemblies in the new regions of the country – in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. The heads of these entities will also be elected by voting in parliaments.

On July 14, the chairman of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, said that work to discredit the upcoming presidential elections in the Russian Federation in 2024 had already begun. According to her, this is done by “enemies who want to destroy us, who understand how much depends on this.”

Alexander Kislov