It looked like an election day anywhere, as footage rolled of people bundled up in winter layers registering at a polling station, and then entering voting booths to cast their ballots. The report, running on the only local television channel, then cut to shots of a bald-headed man in a colorful coat, with the commentary explaining that he was a foreign election monitor.

“Watching how inhabitants of the republic vote, the observer from Belgium, Kris Roman, was surprised that elections in our state were completely transparent,” said the female voice. “According to him, it is very different in the European Union.”

But this was an election with just one candidate in the unrecognized Donetsk People’s Republic, one of two breakaway regions of Ukraine’s Donbass region run by Russian-backed separatists. The US and European governments have dismissed these so-called elections as an illegal “sham.” And strikingly, Kris Roman, the Belgian election observer, was wearing a coat emblazoned with the word “Russia” as he did his rounds.

“I see that it is absolutely clean and open, even more serious than how we vote in the European Union because in Europe we vote via a computer and no one knows who they vote for,” Roman told the television channel.