Russia's three-day election weekend has begun with protests, military clashes and reported cyber attacks as President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win and serve another six-year term. Ruined by attack.
Officials in Moscow were again accused by Western officials and Russia's opponents of tilting the country's presidential election in Putin's favor ahead of Friday's start of voting. Several of Putin's challengers were campaigning in prison or were prevented from participating in the presidential vote. If things go according to Putin's plan, a law signed in 2021 could keep the Kremlin leader in power until 2036.
Arrests were made at several polling stations in Moscow, Crimea and the Karachaevo-Cherkessia region on Friday after protesters poured dye into ballot boxes, Russian media reported. One such instance of him was captured on camera and shared on X (previously his Twitter). washington post Moscow Bureau Chief robin dixon. The footage shows a woman pouring dark dye into her ballot box at an unspecified polling station and almost immediately being detained by law enforcement officers.
Photo: Anna Yurieva/Mikhail Metzel/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
St. Petersburg news agency Fontanka reported that a 21-year-old woman was detained on suspicion of throwing a petrol bomb at a polling station in Moskovsky district. According to the report, the woman told police officers that the Ukrainian Telegram Channel had ordered her to set the fire in exchange for her payment.
newsweek The foreign ministries of Ukraine and Russia were emailed Friday for further comment.
Ukrainian officials also claimed Friday that they had hacked Russia's online voting system. A spokesperson for the Kiev Military Intelligence Service (HUR) said. Kiev Independent He said the authorities were trying to disrupt the online election system, adding: “There are no elections or democracy there anyway.”
Cross-border attacks have also been reported along the Russia-Ukraine border, with pro-Kiev Russian militias claiming control of a village in the Kursk region earlier this week. President Putin told a meeting of Russia's Security Council on Friday that the country's western regions were facing repeated shelling and that about 2,500 armed Ukrainian “proxies” were carrying out the attacks. .
“The attacks of these enemies will not go unpunished,” the Kremlin leader added, according to a Reuters report.
Ela Panfilova, head of the Russian Election Commission, also spoke out on Friday against the protests and damage to ballot box sites, saying such actions are punishable by up to five years in prison. told Russian media.
Referring to reports that some of the detained perpetrators allegedly received money from Ukraine, Panfilova said: “In particular, they are trying to destroy the votes of people who came to vote because of these silver coins. To all the cowards.”
Russian-appointed officials operating in the occupied territories of Ukraine said an explosive had been detonated in a trash can outside a polling station in Skadovsk, a small port city in the Kherson region, the BBC reported. No injuries were reported as a result of the attack.
The Russian government's decision to hold elections in illegally annexed Ukrainian territory in 2022 was condemned by Kiev officials, who warned their allies that they were “obvious to Russia's intention to hold presidential elections on occupied Ukrainian territory.” categorically condemned the act and called for the imposition of sanctions on its organizations and Ukrainian actors. “
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