MOSCOW - The first day of voting in Russia’s presidential election was marred by acts of vandalism at polling stations on March 15, with at least nine arrests for pouring dye into ballot boxes and arson attacks.
In Moscow, video showed a woman setting a voting booth alight, filling a polling station with smoke, while another showed a woman pouring green dye into a ballot box. Close to the border with Ukraine, a wave of Ukrainian drone and artillery strikes killed two people in the Belgorod region.The strikes cap one the heaviest weeks of aerial attacks since the start of conflict and come after a week ofIn power as president or prime minister since the final day of 1999, victory in the three-day vote would allow the Russian leader to stay in power until 2030 – longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.
‘An election like none other’: Russian presidential polls kick off with Vladimir Putin guaranteed victoryThe Kremlin leader’s confidence is riding high. His troops have secured their first territorial gains in Ukraine in nearly a year and his most strident opponent of the last decade, Alexei Navalny,In Moscow, a few dozen residents queued in the morning sun to be among the first in the capital to cast their ballots.
Armed soldiers in full combat gear accompanied election officials in the eastern Donetsk region as they set up mobile voting stations on small tables in the street and on the hoods of Soviet-era cars.UN chief condemns Russia bid to hold presidential poll in occupied Ukraine