Today is the last day of voting in Russia’s presidential election, and while Vladimir Putin’s victory is certain, there have been some acts of defiance.
Here are some ways Putin’s opponents protested the election.
green dye
On the first day of the three-day voting, there were numerous reports of Russian citizens pouring green dye into ballot boxes.
On Friday, Nikolai Bulayev, deputy head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, announced that there had been five incidents in which liquid was poured into containers.
According to Interfax news agency, the liquid was disinfectant used during protests in Russia and Ukraine.
Two women were arrested on the outskirts of Moscow for allegedly pouring green dye into boxes to destroy ballots, Russian media reported.
Molotov cocktail
On Friday, someone threw a petrol bomb at a polling station in President Vladimir Putin’s hometown.
Similar measures were taken earlier today at the Russian embassy in Moldova, which was functioning as a polling station.
Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported that one man was arrested on suspicion of the attack.
In another incident, protesters used homemade petrol bombs to destroy ballot boxes in remote areas of the Ural Mountains, state media said.
cyber attack
Russia’s ruling United Russia party said on Saturday that it was facing widespread denial-of-service attacks, a type of cyberattack aimed at paralyzing web traffic, and had shut down non-essential services to fight it off.
deface the ballot paper
Numerous reports from parts of occupied Ukraine, including Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia, include accusations by local residents that members of the Russian military went door to door and forced Ukrainian citizens to vote at gunpoint. It was
Photos uploaded to Telegram on Saturday by the Mariupol city council claimed to show small-scale protests by Ukrainians who were forced to vote, including defacing ballot papers.
The team of late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny also shared an image on X purporting to show fraudulent ballots.
“Noon vs. Putin”
Building on a protest tactic proposed by her late husband, Yulia Navalnaya called on her supporters to visit polling stations at noon today to protest the election.
A symbolic protest called “Noon Against Putin” encouraged people to come to polling stations and destroy their ballots.
This has been presented as a way for people to voice their opposition without risking arrest as they line up to legally vote.
The Kremlin has warned people against participating in unauthorized gatherings.
“Today we want to say to you: Noon is just the beginning,” the Noon Anti-Putin Movement wrote on Telegram.
“Yes, some of us are scared. Yes, the choice is not easy. But we are a people, and we deal with both choice and responsibility.”
This tweet from Team Navalny calls on people in Moscow to send photos from Moscow voting stations.
What are the officials saying?
Russian officials said the incident would not affect the election, with Mr. Putin competing against three candidates with little chance of victory.
The outcome of the election is in no doubt, and the focus of both demonstrators and officials is on turnout and the number of legal votes cast.
A high turnout is seen as beneficial to the Kremlin, as it gives the appearance of legitimacy to the results.
More than 114 million people are eligible to vote, including in four regions of Ukraine that were illegally annexed by Moscow, even though the Russian military only controls parts of the region.
Russia’s Central Election Commission said more than 63 million voters had already gone to the polls by Saturday evening.