2024-03-15 13:37:29
On Friday, a bomb exploded in front of a polling station in the Russian-occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine on the first day of the Russian presidential elections, without causing injuries.
The Regional Electoral Commission of the Russian occupation authorities said on Telegram, “In Skadovsk, a bomb was placed in a trash can in front of the polling station. It exploded without causing casualties.”
In another incident, a woman set fire to an insulation inside a polling station in southern Moscow, on Friday, according to official and independent Russian media.
The “Ria Novosti” news agency reported that “a woman set fire to an insulation” inside one of the polling stations in the capital, while the independent “SOTA” agency published a video clip showing a woman heading towards an insulation before calmly leaving behind it while the flames were burning in it, saying that the incident It occurred in the Marino area, south of the capital.
The Russian authorities arrested at least seven people on suspicion of committing acts of sabotage in polling stations, according to officials, without clarifying whether they did so as an expression of their protest once morest President Vladimir Putin.
Five people in at least four areas poured paint into ballot boxes. The sixth was arrested for setting fire to a ballot box, while the seventh was arrested for setting off firecrackers inside a polling station.
The Russians headed to the polls on Friday to participate in presidential elections that will grant Vladimir Putin, de facto and in the absence of any opposition, a new mandate.
Voting will continue for three days, and includes areas in Ukraine that Russia announced its annexation following the invasion it began in February 2022, and the pro-Moscow separatist region of Transdniestria in Moldova.
Putin faces three candidates who oppose neither the offensive in Ukraine nor the repression that has wiped out all opposition, culminating in the death of Alexei Navalny in prison in mid-February.
Putin’s victory in these elections would allow him to remain in power until 2030. Thanks to the 2020 constitutional amendment, he will be able to run once more and remain in office until 2036, in which he will turn 84 years old.
Sarcastically, European Council President Charles Michel sent “congratulations” to Putin on Friday on his “landslide victory in the elections that begin today,” adding, “No opposition, no freedom, no choice.”
The United States criticized the vote, denouncing the “organized sham elections in the occupied Ukrainian territories.” The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the international community to reject the result of this vote, which it described as a “farce.”
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