2024-03-24 09:50:23
Russia celebrates on Sunday the last day of the presidential elections that aim for a triumphant re-election of Vladimir Putin, in a context marked by repression, the death of the opponent Alexei Navalni and the conflict with Ukraine.
The three days of voting were marked by an increase in deadly Ukrainian bombings, a series of incursions by pro-Ukrainian militias into Russian territory and vandalism at polling stations.
The Kremlin presented the elections as an opportunity for Russians to express their support for the offensive in Ukraine, where elections are also being held in areas controlled by Moscow.
Ukraine has called the elections illegitimate and called on its Western allies not to recognize President Putin’s inevitable new six-year term.
Supporters of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Putin’s main rival who died in an Arctic prison in February, urged voters to protest at noon (0900 GMT) by spoiling their ballots at polling stations.
Some voters responded to the call in Moscow, telling AFP that they came to honor Navalny’s memory and show their opposition in the only legal way possible.
However, others expressed support for Putin.
“What we want today, above all, is peace,” explained Liubov Piankova, an 80-year-old retiree who went to vote in St. Petersburg, Putin’s hometown.
– Tributes to Navalny –
At Navalny’s grave, in a Moscow cemetery, AFP journalists saw electoral ballots with his name written on them, placed on a pile of flowers.
Navalni, who promoted massive protests and who before dying called for protests this Sunday, tried to run in the 2018 presidential elections, but his candidacy was rejected.
«I came to say goodbye to him. “For me he is a hero,” said Natalia, a 65-year-old pensioner who went to spoil her ballot at the Moscow polling station where Navalny used to vote.
“This is our only opportunity to express our opinion,” said her friend Elena, a 38-year-old engineer.
During the first days of the elections there were other acts of protest, with a wave of arrests of Russians accused of pouring dye into the ballot boxes or arson attacks.
Public dissent has been harshly punished in Russia since the start of the offensive against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, and authorities have warned against election protests.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continued its bombing, attacking at least eight regions overnight and Sunday morning, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Three airports in the capital briefly suspended operations after the bombing and a drone attack in the south caused a fire at an oil refinery.
In Belgorod, a city near the border with Ukraine, a Ukrainian attack killed a 16-year-old girl and wounded her father, the region’s governor said Sunday.
And in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, where elections are also being held, drones set fire to a polling station, according to Moscow-installed authorities.
– «Difficult period» –
Putin, a 71-year-old former KGB agent, has been in power since the last day of 1999 and hopes to extend his command until at least 2030.
If he completed a new term, he would have remained in power longer than any other Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.
He has no real opponents in the elections, after excluding two candidates opposed to the conflict in Ukraine.
Putin admitted Thursday in a pre-election message that Russia is going through a “difficult period.”
“We must continue united and confident in ourselves,” he expressed, describing the elections as a way for Russians to express “their patriotic feelings.”
Voting will conclude in Kaliningrad, the westernmost part of Russia, at 18000 GMT, and the results of exit polls are expected to be announced shortly thereafter.
A concert will be held in Moscow’s Red Square on Monday to mark the 10th anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula, an event that should serve as a celebration of Putin’s victory.
Before the election, Russian state media extolled recent advances on the front and presented the conflict as a fight for survival against Western attacks.
Moscow has sought to advance on the front in the face of divisions in the West over military support for Ukraine, which faces a shortage of ammunition, although kyiv says it has so far managed to stop Russian advances.