Russia voted yesterday on the final day of an election to extend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule to three decades, as Ukraine launched fresh drone attacks and some Russians spoiled their ballots in protest.
The three-day vote had already been marred by a surge in fatal Ukrainian bombardments, incursions into Russian territory by pro-Kyiv sabotage groups and vandalism at polling stations.
The Kremlin has cast the election as an opportunity for Russians to show they are behind the assault on Ukraine, where voting is also being staged in Russian-held areas.
Photo: Reuters
Ukraine has repeatedly denounced the vote as illegitimate and asked its Western allies not to recognize Putin’s inevitable new six-year mandate.
Supporters of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month, urged voters to crowd into polling stations at noon and spoil their ballots for a “Midday Against Putin” protest.
At least some voters appeared to heed that call at Moscow polling stations, saying they had come to honor Navalny’s memory and show their opposition in the only legal way possible.
However, other voters expressed their support for Putin, saying that casting their ballots for him was the only way to guarantee peace.
“What we want today, first of all, is peace,” 70-year-old pensioner Lyubov Pyankova said.
She was standing in front of a polling station in Putin’s native city of St Petersburg decorated with the red, white and blue ‘V’ logo — a symbol associated with the military offensive that Moscow has also used to promote the vote.
Russia simply wanted “not to be disturbed, not to be told what to do,” Pyankova said.
At Navalny’s grave in a Moscow cemetery, reporters saw spoiled ballot papers with his name written on them left on a pile of flowers.
Navalny, who galvanized mass protests, tried to run against Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but his candidacy was rejected.
“I came to give my farewell to him. He is a hero to me,” said Natalya, a 65-year-old pensioner, who came to spoil her ballot together with her friend Elena, a 38-year-old engineer.
“This is our only opportunity to express our opinion,” Elena said, speaking at the Moscow polling station where Navalny used to vote.
There were repeated acts of protest in the first days of polling, with a spate of arrests of Russians accused of pouring dye into ballot boxes or arson attacks.
Voting is to wrap up in Kaliningrad, Russia’s westernmost time zone, at 6pm GMT and an exit poll is expected to be announced shortly afterward.
Meanwhile, a surge in Ukrainian strikes on Russia continued unabated with the Russian Ministry of Defense reporting at least eight regions attacked overnight and yesterday morning.
Three airports serving the capital briefly suspended operations following the barrage, while a drone attack in the south sparked a fire at an oil refinery.
In Russia’s border city of Belgorod, Ukrainian shelling killed a 16-year-old girl and wounded her father, the region’s governor said.
The governor ordered the closure of shopping centers and schools in Belgorod and the surrounding area for two days because of the strikes.
In the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, where voting is also taking place, “kamikaze drones” set a polling station ablaze, the Moscow-installed authorities said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
The navy next month is expected to commission into service two more domestically built Tuo Chiang-class stealth missile corvettes, a source said yesterday. The Hsu Chiang (旭江, PGG-621) and the Wu Chiang (武江, PGG-623) would be officially commissioned in a ceremony early next month, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The corvettes, launched in February and June last year respectively, were delivered to the navy in February. They are the third and fourth Tuo Chiang-class stealth missile corvettes to be produced. The Tuo Chiang-class corvette is a domestically designed and manufactured class of fast and stealthy multipurpose corvette built for the
A total of 41 US military personnel were stationed in Taiwan as of December last year, a US congressional report said on Friday last week ahead of Tuesday’s passage of an aid package that included US$8 billion for Taiwan. The Congressional Research Service in a report titled Taiwan Defense Issues for Congress said that according to the US Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center, 41 US military personnel were assigned for duty in Taiwan. Although the normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979 included a vow to withdraw a military presence from Taiwan, “observers have indicated