Russia has opened polling stations for the 2024 presidential election in the Moscow-occupied regions of Ukraine despite ongoing fighting and the regions being internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. Moscow claimed to have annexed Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions following 2022 referendums that Ukraine and the West described as a sham. It previously annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Experts call the voting in these regions “a loyalty check” for their Kremlin-backed authorities more than two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. With the war raging near…