There can be no question of a democratic election. Accompanied by fraud and without real opposition, Putin is confirmed in office in Russia. However, there were occasional protests on the first day.
A presidential election for a fifth term in office for Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, criticized as a farce, has begun in Russia with the exclusion of the opposition. The 71-year-old Putin, who has been waging war against Ukraine for more than two years, is expected to lead the world’s largest country in terms of area for another six years.
State election researchers expect a record result of more than 80 percent of the vote on Sunday in the three-day vote. According to the electoral commission, around 27 million people in the country with eleven time zones voted today under the impression of the war and accompanied by individual protests. Voter turnout was reported at 24 percent.
Kyiv: elections illegitimate
A total of 114 million people were called to vote, including more than 4.5 million in the areas of Ukraine attacked by Russia that were occupied in violation of international law. Ukraine criticizes the vote as illegal. On Russian territory, too, the first day of voting was overshadowed by Putin’s attack on Ukraine: attacks were again reported from the border region of Belgorod, and voting there even had to be interrupted at one point.
The Russian state news agency Ria Novosti published a video showing an empty polling station and wrote that Belgorod voters had to take refuge in shelters. In reports from independent Russian media, the situation was sometimes much more dramatic: For example, a video from another polling station was circulated in which a loud explosion noise can be heard – and then people screaming in panic.
According to their own statements, pro-Ukrainian paramilitaries have been fighting with the Russian army in the border area for days. On the first day of the election, they also bombed the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa so heavily that at least 16 people were killed and dozens more injured.
Putin: Ukrainian attacks will not stop presidential election
Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin has described the new attacks from the Ukrainian side on the Russian border region of Belgorod on the first day of the presidential election as a senseless attempt to disrupt. “I am convinced that our people, the people of Russia, will respond to this with even greater solidarity,” Putin said during a video link with representatives of the National Security Council. The people in the multi-ethnic state would not allow themselves to be intimidated, said the president.
Numerous civilians were injured in the attacks against the Russian border region of Belgorod and also against the Kursk region that have been ongoing for several days. Putin announced help for the victims of the attacks. Ukraine deployed more than 2,500 fighters for the terrorist acts of sabotage, with losses around 60 percent, Putin said. In addition, 35 tanks and around 40 armored military vehicles were deployed. With these attacks, Ukraine is once again trying to distract from the defeats in its own country.
Ink in ballot boxes – election management calls for stronger security
In the various regions of Russia, despite massive state repression, some voters resisted the vote, which was criticized as unfair and unfree. According to official reports, in several places across the vast country, men and women poured paint into ballot boxes to invalidate the ballot papers inside. There was an arson attack each in St. Petersburg and Moscow. There were several arrests.
The deputy head of the electoral commission in Moscow, Nikolai Bulayev, portrayed the protests as externally controlled actions and called for greater monitoring of polling stations. However, the largest protest action is not planned for Sunday: Kremlin opponents are calling on Russians to show up in front of the polling stations at exactly 12 noon and to express their dissatisfaction through the long lines. You should then invalidate the ballot papers by checking them several times.
No opposition
More than two years after the start of Moscow’s war of aggression and the associated intensification of repression in Russia, the election in Russia has little to do with democracy, according to independent experts. Putin’s three competitors – the communist Nikolai Kharitonov, the liberal Vladislav Davankov and Leonid Slutsky from the nationalist party LDPR – not only have no chance at all, they are also completely in line with the Kremlin in key respects.
Applicants who spoke out against Putin’s war of aggression were not even accepted as candidates. Most of the real opposition members have fled abroad anyway, are in prison – or are dead. Critics therefore speak of an “election farce” that has nothing in common with a vote according to democratic rules. Among others, the widow of the Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who recently died in a prison camp, Yulia Navalnaya, called on the international community not to recognize the election results.
No OSCE election observers
The independent election observation organization “Golos”, which has been politically persecuted for years, pointed out “mass” election fraud: In many places, state officials and employees of large, partly state-owned corporations are being pressured to vote. “The first day of voting has begun and everything is going exactly as we warned: from the morning there was pressure on a huge number of voters,” wrote the co-chair of “Golos”, Stanislav Andreychuk, on Telegram. There was also criticism that this time Russia did not invite the election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who stand for independent and transparent control.
Russia’s election chief Ella Pamfilova said everything was “normal.” At the same time, however, she had to admit that there were irregularities in online voting right from the start. Officially, she attributed the problems to a large number of voters who wanted to cast their votes online. In the capital Moscow alone, 500,000 people cast their votes online that morning, it was said. Kremlin critics, on the other hand, warn Russians about electronic voting, which is considered particularly vulnerable to manipulation.
In some cases the vote was organized like a folk festival with folklore performances and singers. Many prominent politicians, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, cast their votes early. It is certain that Putin will win – after all, he had the Russian constitution amended almost four years ago to allow him to run again. Nevertheless, Moscow’s power apparatus wants to achieve the highest possible voter turnout in order to describe the vote as legitimate.
The forecasts, which are based on surveys of voters after voting, and the first results are expected to be announced on Sunday evening, after the last polling stations in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad have closed at 7 p.m. CET. There should be more reliable figures on Monday night. According to the electoral commission, the preliminary final result should be announced in the first half of the day on Monday.
EU Council President Michel congratulates Putin on his election victory
Because the winner of this much-criticized vote has basically been determined, EU Council President Charles Michel sent ironic congratulations to Moscow as a precaution. “I would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” Michel mocked on the X (formerly Twitter) platform. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice,” he added. And Russia’s power apparatus itself isn’t trying too hard to maintain the illusion of an exciting election: preparations for Putin’s big victory celebration this Monday have been underway on Red Square for days.