In this country with eleven time zones, schools opened at 8 p.m. on Saturday on the Kamchatka peninsula and will close at 6 p.m. on Sunday in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningradafter which the first official preliminary results will be known.
As reported by the Central Election Commission (CEC)On Friday and Saturday, more than 50% of voters exercised their right to vote, while 2.6 million did so in advance, many of them soldiers and inhabitants of the Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia.
The first 24 hours of voting were marked by some incidents such as the throwing of Molotov cocktails at polling stations and the spraying of ink and paint on the ballot boxes, which invalidated a few hundred ballots.
The CEC was pleased that neither these incidents, nor the “unprecedented” cyber attacks nor the Ukrainian border incursions, which left several dead, have prevented Russians from turning out en masse to vote in the eighth presidential elections in the history of this country since 1991 .
Putin, who has a voting intention of more than 80%According to official polls, he could achieve his largest electoral victory since he came to power in 2000.
His three rivals are the party representative New People, Vladislav Davankov, and the communist Nikolai Kharitonov, who have 6% support among those surveyed, and the ultranationalist Leonid Slutski, who has around 5% support.
Elections in Russia: opponents call to protest against Vladimir Putin
Russian opponents called for massive protests on Sunday at voting centers, on the third and final day of the presidential elections that aim to triumphantly re-elect President Vladimir Putin against the backdrop of Ukraine.
The three days of voting were marked by an increase in deadly Ukrainian bombings and a series of incursions by pro-Ukrainian militias into Russian territory.
There were also protests, with a wave of arrests of Russians accused of pouring dye into election ballot boxes or arson attacks.
russia elections 2024.jpeg
Before his death in February in an Arctic prison, opposition leader Alexei Navalny had called on Russians to protest this Sunday.
His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, reiterated the call before the elections, and asked protesters to go to the polling stations at the same time, at noon (09H00 GMT), to saturate the voting centers and write “Navalni” on the ballots. or vote for any candidate other than Putin.
Russia-Ukraine War: 35 drones were shot down on Russian soil and tension with NATO increases
The anti-aircraft defense systems were shot down in the last hours at least 35 Ukrainian drones in eight Russian regionsincluding Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry reported this Sunday.
The attacks occurred shortly before the European part of Russia began the third and final day of the presidential electionsin which the re-election of the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, for a fifth term is taken for granted.
According to the military report, published on Telegram, four drones were shot down in the Moscow regionwhile in the Krasnodar region, close to the annexed Crimean peninsula, anti-aircraft defenses shot down 17 unmanned aerial devices.
Meanwhile, despite the warning from the Prosecutor’s Office, the opposition to the Kremlin maintains its call for “Noon without Putin”, which consists of going to the doors of the polling stations at 12 on Sunday to show their rejection of the head of the Kremlin, action that was supported before his death by the opposition leader, Alexéi Navalni, and now by his widow, Yulia.
Some 4.5 million voters can vote in the areas occupied by the Russian army in the four Ukrainian regions annexed by Moscow (Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia).
Ukraine called the elections in those regions, which make up a fifth of the country’s territory, a “farce”, a vote that was also condemned by the UN Secretary General, António Guterres.
Source: Ambito
