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LUXEMBOURG — EU foreign ministers unanimously approved 77 new sanctions listings on Oct. 12, targeting people who ran in and helped set up Russia's September sham election on illegally occupied Ukrainian territory, the Irish EU Presidency confirmed for the Kyiv Independent.
Russia held its State Duma elections from Sept. 18 to 20, while voting in occupied Ukrainian territories began in late August.
Of the 77 sanctioned individuals, 74 ran as candidates, while the remaining three were newly elected members of Russia's electoral commission. Most election organizers and 24 candidates were already subject to EU sanctions.
Ukraine already sanctioned over 40 people involved in those elections on Sept. 26, and the EU had previously passed election-related sanctions after Moscow banned the only remaining anti-war party, Yabloko (Apple), from competing.
The Russian State Duma elections were the first elections for Russia's lower house of parliament to be held in the occupied Ukrainian territories after Russia had issued Russian passports en masse to Ukrainians there, requiring them to renounce their Ukrainian citizenship.
However, the State Duma elections were not the first Russian-organized votes held in the occupied territories.
In September 2022, Russian occupation authorities held sham referendums in the occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts.
Russia organized so-called regional elections in the occupied territories in 2023 and held presidential elections there in 2024, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin was again declared the winner.
Also on Oct. 12, the EU passed almost 1,600 sanctions listings targeting Russia's military-industrial complex.