Russians crowded outside polling stations at midday Sunday on the last day of a three-day presidential election, apparently heeding an opposition call to protest against President Vladimir Putin.
Putin is poised to extend his nearly quarter century of rule for six more years after a relentless crackdown on dissent.
The election is taking place amid attacks within Russia by Ukrainian missiles and drones, which have killed several people. Polls opened Friday in a tightly controlled environment where Putin only faces competition from three token rivals and there is little public criticism of him or his war in Ukraine.
Putin’s fiercest political foe, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison last month, and other critics are either in jail or in exile. There are no significant independent observers monitoring the election.
Navalny’s associates urged those unhappy with Putin or the war to protest by coming to the polls at noon on Sunday, a strategy endorsed by Navalny shortly before his death. Navalny’s team described it as a success, pointing to pictures and videos of people — including his widow Yulia Navalnaya — crowding near polling stations at noon in cities across Russia, and at Russian embassies around the world.
While Russians went to the polls, a major Ukrainian drone attack across Russia Sunday once again was a reminder of challenges faced by the Kremlin.
The governor of the Belgorod region near Ukraine said that three people were killed in the attacks while Russia’s Defense Ministry said it took down more than 100 Ukrainian drones and missiles across the weekend.
Voting is took place at polling stations across the vast country’s 11 time zones, in illegally annexed regions of Ukraine, and online.
Despite tight controls, several dozen cases of vandalism…
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