2024-03-16 06:05:31
Putin vows strong response to Ukraine attacks as Russian election comes to a head
(AFP, Moscow, 15th) Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed today to respond with tough military action to a series of attacks by Ukraine on the Russian border. He said that Ukraine was trying to use these attacks to hinder his weekend presidential election. won re-election.
Russia will launch a three-day general election starting today. Even the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia will vote, and no opposition candidates are allowed to run.
In a speech before the Security Council on the first day of voting, Putin pledged to respond harshly to a wave of deadly airstrikes carried out by Ukraine in border areas of Belgorod and Kursk regions, where pro-Ukrainian violence has also occurred in recent days. Armed groups fought fiercely with Russia.
“These enemy attacks cannot and will not go unpunished,” long-ruling Putin said in a speech broadcast on state television.
Putin, 71, also said: “This is an attempt to interfere in the presidential election.”
Putin has been in power since late 1999 and will remain in power until 2030 if he wins this election.
Images released by the Russian Kremlin showed Putin voting online using his office computer and waving to the camera following vowing to fight back once morest Ukraine; at the same time, a Russian military attack in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa killed at least 19 People lost their lives.
Putin is unopposed in this election, and the authorities have banned two candidates who oppose the Russia-Ukraine war. Alexei Navalny, Putin’s number one political rival, died suddenly in an Arctic prison on the 16th of last month. The cause of death was unknown.
Russian authorities are encouraging Russians to come out and vote out of their patriotic duty, with the Kremlin saying the election will demonstrate national support for Putin’s military action once morest Ukraine.
AFP reporters interviewed Russians who supported Putin at polling stations in the capital Moscow, but also heard voters say they were forced to come out to vote.
Nadezhda, a 23-year-old ballet dancer, said: “If I don’t come out to vote, I will get into trouble… Most young people know that there is nothing they can do and they can’t change anything.”
There were several incidents of vandalism at polling stations on the first day of voting, and at least nine people were arrested for pouring dye into ballot papers and arson attacks.
It is unclear whether the series of polling station vandalism incidents in many places were coordinated protests once morest the election or independent single incidents.
Voting was also held in five occupied regions of eastern Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed, including the Crimean peninsula.
In the occupied city of Skadovsk in southern Ukraine, Russian-backed officials said someone detonated an explosive device at a polling station, but there were no casualties.
Kiev authorities said holding elections in eastern Ukraine and Crimea was “illegal”; United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and more than 50 member states also condemned Russia’s actions.
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