On September 17-19, elections to Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) were unlawfully staged in the Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine’s east (Donetsk and Luhansk) as well as in annexed Crimea. Elections to the Russian Duma were also held unlawfully in Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia – territories seized from Moldova and Georgia, respectively. The voting demonstrated Moscow’s systematic use of illegal “passportization” of citizens of other countries in territories forcibly seized from those countries. Russia uses mass-passportization as a form of annexing populations without necessarily declaring the annexation of the territory to Russia (see accompanying article in Eurasia Daily Monitor, September 23).