IIn several major Russian cities, people responded to the call to come to the polling stations at twelve noon on Sunday as a sign of protest against Vladimir Putin’s rule. Telegram channels of dissident Russian media in exile, as well as news agencies, distributed images of dozens of polling stations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, in front of which long queues formed around lunchtime. There were similar recordings from Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Togliatti and Chelyabinsk.
Judging by the pictures, the number of people waiting ranged from a few dozen to a few hundred. In front of a polling station at the Moscow Physical and Technical Institute, students chanted to celebrate opposition politician Boris Nadjezhdin, who was not allowed to vote despite collecting the required number of signatures. Nadjeschdin teaches at the university.
Large numbers of Russians living in exile also followed the call of opponents of the regime. Pictures are coming from the capitals of many countries, where many Russians have fled to escape the political situation in their homeland, showing long queues in front of the polling stations in the Russian embassies and consulates at lunchtime.
In Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, around 3,000 people stood in front of the Russian consulate at lunchtime, according to reports from the Kazakh media. According to the exile broadcaster Dozhd, around 5,000 people gathered in front of the Russian embassy around lunchtime in the Armenian capital Yerevan.
Rush at lunchtime: in front of a polling station in Saint Petersburg
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Image: AP
The “Lunch against Putin” campaign was originally conceived by the Petersburg opposition politician Maxim Resnik. Opposition leader Alexei Navalnyj called for participation shortly before his death in a penal camp in the Arctic Circle in mid-February. Navalnyj’s team and his wife Yulia had posted further calls in recent days to come to the polling stations at twelve noon local time and invalidate the ballot papers or vote for any candidate other than Putin.
Navalny’s confidant Leonid Volkov, who lives in exile in Lithuania and was injured in an attack in Vilnius just a few days ago, spoke of an “explosion of resistance” against Putin during a live stream on YouTube. However, it is difficult to estimate the actual extent of the protest given the large number of polling stations. Even in Moscow it was apparently not widespread. There were also polling stations in the capital where nothing was going on at lunchtime.
Last week, the Moscow public prosecutor’s office threatened that gatherings of people in front of polling stations could be viewed as unauthorized demonstrations and participation in them could be punished. Apparently strong police forces took up positions near some polling stations in downtown Moscow; Corresponding recordings were distributed by the news portal Meduza, among others. Initially there were no reports of any intervention by the security forces.
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