What foreign observers are assessing Putin's pseudo-elections in occupied Luhansk region?

How the participants in a Russian youth forum from Africa became 'international experts'

The Russian state news agency TASS released a video about "international experts" from African countries (Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Namibia) who assessed the "transparency" of the pseudo-elections of the Russian president in the temporarily occupied Luhansk region.

These "experts" turned out to be participants in the World Youth Festival 2024, which Russia held in the village of Sirius in Russia's Krasnodar Krai. Officially, this forum ended on March 7, 2024, but then its participants were divided into groups of 20-30 people and transported to different regions of the Russian Federation and occupied parts of Ukraine. Excursions and round table discussions were held for them on the ground, and then some of them turned into "international observers" at the elections. In particular, this happened to representatives of Cameroon, Congo and Namibia - Nathalie Taka, Cornelia Muisi and Maurice Monusep. In the occupied Luhansk region, they became international election "experts."

We see Namibian Maurice Monusep as part of the World Youth Forum 2024 delegation during a tour of a museum in occupied Alchevsk. He is wearing a white hat and a white vest. In the second photo at the meeting of the so-called "Central Election Commission" in Luhansk, his "colleague" Natalia Taka from Cameroon is sitting next to him in the same vest. Already in the TASS video, he is simply standing in a black suit without a cap and vest.

As for the "expert" from Congo, Cornelia Muisi, she is photographed in the same gray sweater with an orange print at the "maslenitsa festival" with a student from Luhansk and makes comments to TASS as an "international expert."

Before the video was recorded, African "international experts" did not even have the badges of the World Youth Forum 2024 participants removed. And the Cameroonian "observer" was wearing a sweater with a patch of the Russian flag, like other participants of the youth forum who came to the occupied Luhansk region.

According to Ela Pamfilova, head of the Russian Central Election Commission, 706 international observers from 106 countries were accredited for the so-called Russian presidential elections. They will supposedly "monitor" the election process in 55 subjects of the Russian Federation and the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine.

According to Russian media outlets, about 2,000 participants in the Worth Youth Forum 2024 traveled to different parts of Russia and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. It is unclear how many of them became "international observers" at the elections. However, it is now clear how the Russian Federation was able to gather "experts" from as many as 106 countries to simulate a democratic election process.

More than 55 UN member states have signed a statement condemning the Russian presidential "elections" in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller stated that the White House would not recognize the results of sham Russian elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

There are no observers from the OSCE, PACE and the European Parliament at the pseudo-elections in Russia. Also, none of the parliaments of the EU countries and U.S. Congress sent their representatives to Russia.

Only those who have received an invitation from the Kremlin can receive accreditation.

By the way, the president of Cameroon has been in power for more than 40 years.

Andriy Olenin