©Reuters. A man votes at a polling station during the Russian presidential election, amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, March 16, 2024. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko
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MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia accused Ukraine on Saturday of using “terrorist activities” to try to disrupt presidential elections and former President Dmitry Medvedev denounced as “traitors” scattered protesters who attempted to set fire to voting booths and pouring paint on ballot papers. cans.
The war in Ukraine has cast a shadow over voting in the elections, which will almost certainly guarantee President Vladimir Putin another six years in the Kremlin, but have been marked by sporadic acts of protest.
On the second of three days of voting, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Kiev had “intensified its terrorist activities” in connection with the elections “to demonstrate its activity to its Western handlers and to ask for even more financial assistance and lethal weapons “.
In one such incident, a Ukrainian drone was said to have dropped a projectile on a polling station in a Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.
State news agency TASS cited a local election official as reporting no damage or injuries when the explosive device fell five or six meters (yards) from a building housing a polling station before it was opened in a village about 20 km (12 mi) east of the city of Enerhodar.
Reuters could not independently verify the incident.
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials, who consider elections taking place in Russian-controlled parts of its territory illegal and null and void.
Meanwhile, the head of the electoral commission, Ella Pamfilova, said that in the first two days of voting there were 20 incidents of attempts to destroy election papers by pouring various liquids into the ballot boxes, as well as eight cases of attempted arson and arson. smoke bomb.
Commenting on the incidents, Medvedev said those responsible face a 20-year sentence for treason.
“This is direct help to those degenerates who bomb our cities today,” he wrote on social media, referring to the Ukrainian attacks.
On the final day of voting on Sunday, supporters of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny called on people to demonstrate en masse at midday in a rolling protest against Putin in each of the country’s 11 time zones.
UKRAINIAN ATTACKS
Russian media quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Putin had received military reports in recent days of attempts to attack Russian territory in the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk, including several attempted raids overnight.
“All attacks were repelled,” the Interfax news agency said.
A Ukrainian missile attack killed two people on Saturday and another drone attack set fire to an oil refinery.
In the Belgorod region, where cross-border attacks from Ukraine have become part of daily life, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported the deaths of a man and a woman, and later that day, an injury, after saying that Russian defenses had shot down 15 rockets on their approach to the regional capital.
Video obtained by Reuters showed fires burning and air-raid sirens sounding in the deserted streets of the city of Belgorod.
Dmitry Azarov, governor of the Samara region, 850 km (530 miles) southeast of Moscow, said the Syzran refinery was on fire but an attack on a second refinery had been foiled.
The fire was brought under control a few hours later, officials said, but the incidents highlighted Ukraine’s ability to strike hundreds of miles (km) inside Russian territory to target its energy industry. Two other large refineries were set on fire earlier this week by drone strikes that halted half or more of their production.
Gladkov of the Belgorod region said that given “the current situation,” schools in much of the region will close on Monday and Tuesday, and that shopping centers in the city of Belgorod will be closed on Sunday and Monday.
Russia launched its deadliest attack in weeks on Friday when its missiles hit a residential area in the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odessa, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 70.
PUTIN’S DOMINATION
Putin’s grip on power is not in danger in the elections. Aged 71 and serving as president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, he dominates Russia’s political landscape.
None of the other three candidates on the ballot – the veteran communist Nikolai Kharitonov, the nationalist Leonid Slutsky or Vladislav Davankov, deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament – mounted any credible challenge.
Overall turnout – an important indicator for Putin as he seeks to show that the whole country is with him – rose above 58% on the second day of voting.
The rate in the Belgorod region was more than 76%. Turnout was also high in Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine.
Pamfilova, the top election official, said people who try to disrupt the vote are “donuts” and face up to five years in prison. She said, without providing evidence, that the Ukrainian secret service and its “accomplices and manipulators” – a reference to the West – are behind the wave of protest actions seen so far at polling stations.
Russia’s ruling United Russia party said it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack – a form of cyber attack aimed at paralyzing web traffic – and that it had suspended non-essential services to fend it off.
State news agency RIA quoted a senior telecommunications official as attributing the cyberattacks to Ukraine and Western countries.