Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of the Russian-installed administration in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, has again found himself at the center of a public scandal after a livestream on VKontakte on October 28. During the broadcast, he said the region had been defended in 2023 and added: “Not like the people of Kursk, by the way.” After that, acting Kursk region governor Aleksandr Khinshtein demanded an apology, calling the remark offensive and unacceptable for a public official.
Criticism came not only from Kursk officials but also from pro-war Telegram channels. Bloggers questioned Balitsky’s right to blame residents of another region and recalled doubts about his own role in organizing defense. He later said he had not meant the residents themselves, but the former leadership of the Kursk region, which he said bore responsibility for problems with border fortifications.
“I apologize to the residents of the Kursk region who may have taken my words personally,” Balitsky said, adding that the Zaporizhzhia and Kursk regions had supported each other.
At the same time, another conflict involving him is continuing, this time with Russia’s Central Election Commission and Ella Pamfilova. In the summer of 2025, the commission appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office over delayed salary payments to election officials in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region. Balitsky accused the commission’s leadership of inefficiency and pushed for staff cuts, while Pamfilova said he had exceeded his authority and was effectively trying to dismantle the regional election system.
The dispute escalated again on October 23–24, when Balitsky announced the dismissal of regional election commission chair Galina Katyushchenko, citing loss of trust and alleged problems in her income declaration. The next day, the Central Election Commission said it would challenge the decree and again appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office, stressing that a governor has no authority to remove a commission member. Experts quoted by Russian media say the federal power structure is likely to side with the Central Election Commission, not Balitsky, in this confrontation.