Ukraine’s 2019 Elections: Pro-Russian Parties and The Impact of Occupation

Abstract

The annexation of Crimea and occupation of parts of Donbas removed from Ukraine’s electorate 3.5 million voters that had previously voted heavily for pro-Russian parties. Examining the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections, this article asks two questions: how might the results of the election have been different had voters in occupied Donbas been able to vote? Do 2019 voting patterns support the thesis that the Ukrainian electorate had significantly changed its values in the period 2014–2019 or had long-standing cleavages endured? Voter alignments identified before 2014 persisted, with important implications for Russia’s efforts to win influence in Ukraine. The weakening of pro-Russian parties caused by Russia’s invasion in 2014 helped create the conditions in which Russia could not achieve its goals without an all-out invasion.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s Interview with the Solovyov Live YouTube Channel, February 12, 2021’, Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, available at: https://rusemb.org.uk/fnapr/6985, accessed 4 August 2022.

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Notes on contributors

Paul D’Anieri

Paul D’Anieri, Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy, University of California, Riverside 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521, USA. Email: [email protected]