Artur Leier
Versions of names: Артур Лейер
Germany
Artur Leier is a former press officer of the left-wing youth in Hamburg (Linksjugend Hamburg). In April 2017 he visited Crimea with a German Delegation. In 2016, he was a "war correspondent" for SputnikNews in Donbas. Since 2016 he has been a personal assistant of a Member of the Hamburg Parliament Martin Dolzer from Die Linke / The Left.
Artur Leier is the executive director of Weltnetz TV which he co-founded with far-left politician Diether Dehm, who was a member of the Bundestag until 2021.
Corresponding elections
illegitimate
On 11 November 2018, the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, located within the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine, held “elections” to elect a head of the “republic” and members of its “parliament”. The overwhelming majority of the world’s nations does not recognise the sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic, while international institutions such as the OSCE ODIHR considered “elections” there as illegitimate and did not send international election observers there.
illegitimate
From 23 to 27 September 2022, the Russian forces organised a sham election process - pseudo-referendum as a pretext for the formal annexation of the regions of occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson by Russia. The annexation of the four regions was announced on 30 September 2022.