Russia celebrates this Saturday the second day of the presidential elections in which almost a third of the 112 million Russians called to the polls participated on Friday.
According to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), more than 30% of Russians exercised their right to vote the day before, to which must be added the 2.6 million who voted in advance due to the war in Ukraine.
On Friday, several people were arrested for spraying ink, paint and antiseptic on ballot boxes, or throwing Molotov cocktails at polling stations.
Putin accuses Ukraine of trying to torpedo his re-election
In addition, Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday accused Ukraine of trying to torpedo his re-election with attacks and border incursions.
“In order to torpedo the elections, to frighten the people, in several border regions with Ukraine the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev planned and tries to carry out demonstrative military actions (…) These enemy attacks cannot and will not go unpunished,” he stated when presiding. by videoconference a meeting of the Russian Security Council, which was attended by the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu.
At least two Russian civilians were killed in the attack with 15 Vampire missiles against Belgorod; after, for its part, Moscow attacked a residential area of the Ukrainian city of Odessa on Friday, leaving 14 dead and 46 injured.
Putin, 71, voted the day before from his office in an attempt to promote electronic voting, considered fraudulent by the opposition.
The biggest victory since he came to power
According to official polls, Putin has a voting intention of more than 80%, so he could achieve his largest electoral victory since he came to power in 2000.
The representative of the New People party, Vladislav Davankov, and the communist Nikolai Kharitonov have 6% support among those surveyed. Meanwhile, the ultranationalist Leonid Slutski has around 5% support.
Part of the opposition to the Kremlin has decided to support Davankov, whose position on the war is ambiguous, while others have called to go to schools at 12 noon on Sunday in the action known as ‘Noon without Putin’, whose participants They have been threatened with criminal proceedings by the Russian Prosecutor’s Office.
Some 4.5 million voters can vote in the areas occupied by the Russian army in the four Ukrainian regions annexed by Moscow (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia).
After the death in prison of the Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, his coreligionists – who hold Putin directly responsible – called on the West not to recognize the electoral results.
BY: TTU
