2024-03-16 00:05:44
This content was published on March 16, 2024 – 03:01
(Keystone-ATS) Vladimir Putin promised Friday that Russia would respond to Ukrainian air attacks on its soil. He estimated that the recent armed ground incursions by pro-Ukraine fighters aimed to “disrupt” the presidential election intended to largely re-elect him.
At least thirteen people were arrested for damage to polling stations, the precise motives of which have not been made public.
Vladimir Putin, who voted online on Friday, on the first day of the vote to re-elect him, assured that Ukrainian strikes once morest Russian territory, which have increased in recent days, would not go “unpunished”.
At the same time, at least 20 people were killed and more than 70 injured in one of the worst Russian missile attacks on Odessa, the major port city in southern Ukraine already targeted twice in recent days.
Also on Friday, the Russian army also said it had repelled multiple land incursions by fighters from Ukraine since March 12, admitting having had to resort to artillery and aviation. These attacks constitute an “attempt to disrupt the presidential election”, denounced Mr. Putin.
The vote which runs from Friday to Sunday should see the master of the Kremlin reappointed for an additional mandate of six years, the opposition having been eradicated. However, it does not go off without a hitch.
Incidents across Russia
A woman was arrested following setting fire to a voting booth in Moscow, according to Russian media, while a second, aged 20, tried to throw a Molotov cocktail at a polling station in Saint Petersburg, according to a local manager.
One person was arrested for trying to set fire to a ballot box in Khanty-Mansisk in Siberia and another for trying to light a firecracker in a polling station in the Chelyabinsk region, not far from the Ural Mountains.
Six people were also arrested for pouring dye into ballot boxes near the Russian capital, in Siberia and in the regions of Voronezh (west), Rostov-on-Don (southwest) and Karachay-Cherkessia. , in the Caucasus. The head of the electoral commission, Ella Pamfilova, claimed that these people were acting for money promised by “bastards, from abroad”.
In occupied Ukraine, a bomb exploded without causing casualties outside a polling station in the southern region of Kherson and Ukrainian forces shelled two local election commissions, according to occupation authorities.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office warned Thursday once morest any protests, as no criticism or opposition is tolerated in Russia.
“Difficult” times
On the eve of the presidential election, Vladimir Putin, 71 years old including 24 in power, urged his compatriots not to “deviate from the path” in these “difficult” times, an allusion to the consequences of the assault he launched once morest Ukraine more than two years ago.
The outgoing president faces three candidates without scope who oppose neither the offensive in Ukraine nor the repression which has eradicated all opposition, culminating with the death in prison in mid-February of Kremlin critic Alexeï Navalny.
Yulia Navalnaïa, who vowed to continue her husband’s fight, for her part called on Russians to protest by voting for any of the candidates with the exception of Putin. She also asked Russians supporting the opposition to go to the polling stations at the same time, Sunday at 12:00 p.m. (10:00 a.m. Swiss), to show that there are many of them.
“Farce”
Voting began at 8:00 a.m. local time on Friday (9:00 p.m. in Switzerland on Thursday) on the Kamchatka Peninsula and in Chukotka, two remote regions of the Russian Far East. It will end on Sunday at 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. Swiss) in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave bordering European Union countries.
With this election, Vladimir Putin will remain in power until 2030 and will be able to run once more to remain in charge until 2036, the year he turns 84. He had the Constitution revised for this purpose in 2020.
The President of the European Council Charles Michel, for his part, “congratulated” with irony on Friday Mr. Putin “for his overwhelming victory in the elections which begin today”. The United States criticized the vote and Ukrainian diplomacy urged the international community to reject this “farce”.
Armed incursions
Ukraine has increased military pressure on the Russian border regions of Belgorod and Kursk, targeted by a multitude of drone attacks and ground incursions by military units made up of Russians opposed to the Kremlin.
At the same time, drone attacks are intensifying in border regions but also hundreds of kilometers from the front, kyiv having promised retaliation for the bombings that Ukraine has suffered for more than two years.
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