Protests expected on final day of sham Russian elections – Russia war

Critics of president Vladimir Putin have referred to as for protests at Russian polling stations on the ultimate day of the sham presidential elections.

There have been sporadic acts of protests within the first two days of the polls, with a spate of arrests of Russians accused of pouring dye into poll packing containers.

Alexei Navalny, Kremlin critic and opposition chief, earlier than his dying had referred to as on Russians to stage protests on Sunday. Now, his widow Yulia Navalnaya, has reiterated his name.

She referred to as for protesters to spoil ballots by writing “Navalny” on them or vote for candidates as an alternative of Mr Putin, AFP reported

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned latest profitable Ukraine drone strikes on Russian targets revealed vulnerabilities within the Russian struggle machine.

Ukraine has struck a number of oil refineries in Russia this week, reaching targets in Krasnodar, Samara, Ryazan, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod, and Leningrad.

“These weeks have demonstrated to many who the Russian struggle machine has vulnerabilities that we will attain with our weapons,” Mr Zelensky mentioned in his night handle.

“I’m grateful to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Safety Service of Ukraine, and Defence Intelligence for his or her new Ukrainian long-range functionality.

“What our personal drones are able to is a real Ukrainian long-range functionality. Ukraine will now all the time have a strike power within the sky,” he added.

United Russia, for which Vladimir Putin acts as its de facto ruler however is just not representing in these elections, claimed it confronted a widespread denial of service assault – a type of cyberattack aimed toward paralysing internet visitors – and had suspended non-essential providers to repel it.

State information company RIA quoted a senior telecoms official as blaming the cyberattacks on Ukraine and Western international locations. They didn’t present proof to substantiate this declare.

Russian residents will spend this weekend casting their vote for his or her subsequent president, although the end result has already been determined.

No quantity of votes in opposition to him can forestall his victory, say the Russian dissident neighborhood, because the system is rigged and those who might problem him have both been killed, imprisoned or exiled.

Ukrainian shelling of the Russian metropolis of Belgorod killed two individuals, officers mentioned Saturday, whereas Russia claimed to have thwarted a brand new try by saboteurs to cross the border.

Saturday’s assaults occurred as Russians entered the second day of voting in a presidential election that’s all however sure to increase Vladimir Putin’s rule by one other six years after he crushed dissent.

A person and a lady died within the assault and three different individuals had been wounded, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov mentioned. It was the most recent in exchanges of long-range missile and rocket hearth in Russia’s struggle on Ukraine.

With the outcomes of the vote already recognized upfront, it could be tempting to forged a blind eye to the proceedings, writes Mary Dejevsky. However after the dying of Alexei Navalny, and uncertainty round Ukraine, issues might not be fairly as predictable as they appear…

Editorial: With little doubt over the ‘winner’ of this weekend’s Russian presidential election, the West ought to take coronary heart that Putin finds himself remoted – and as his nation recedes into Stalinism, so too does its financial prospects. His impoverishing of the Russian individuals will show his undoing

One individual died as hearth broke out after Ukraine launched a number of drones on the Slavyansk oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar area, official mentioned on Sunday.

“The drones had been neutralised, however a hearth broke out on account of the autumn of one of many units,” the operational headquarters of the area in southern Russia mentioned.

The fireplace was extinguished and there have been no casualties on account of the fireplace itself, the administration mentioned. Preliminary data indicated, nevertheless, one individual had died of a coronary heart assault, it added.

Roman Siniagovskyi, head of the Slavyansk administrative district, mentioned on Telegram that the refinery staff had been evacuated and there was no menace to close by populated areas from the incident.