By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – With all of his influential critics dead, jailed, or in exile, Russian President Vladimir Putin was due to win a controversial presidential contest, cementing his role as the nation’s longest-ruling leader since late Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Russia began casting ballots Friday in an election set to prolong Putin’s presidency by six more years despite him waging a war against Ukraine that is believed to have killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people.
Ukraine branded the vote a “farce” and launched a barrage of deadly attacks inside Russia, authorities said.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, told the media that at least three separate waves of Ukrainian air strikes had killed two people, wounding several others.
He accused Ukraine of trying to “sow panic, distrust, anger, and resentment to break the unit of our society.”
Pro-Ukrainian paramilitaries also claimed to be escalating attacks and incursions in Russian border regions.
TARGETING CIVILIANS?
In a joint statement, three pro-Kyiv volunteer groups — claiming to consist of anti-Kremlin Russians who have taken up arms — called on authorities to evacuate civilians from the regions of Belgorod and Kursk.
“Civilians should not suffer from the war, and any casualties in the process of fighting will be on the conscience” of the regions’ governors, they added.
Russia has denied militias’ claims to have gained ground. The National Guard said its units had beaten back one such attack near the village of Tyotkino in Kursk.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said it halted another attack by Ukrainian forces trying to enter Belgorod via the village of Spodariushino without saying when the clash had happened.
Yet the fighting did little to prevent voting in the world’s largest country by size divided over 11 time zones.
Polling stations opened in Russia’s easternmost Kamchatka peninsula at 8:00 am local time on Friday and were to close at 8:00 pm on Sunday in Kaliningrad — a Russian exclave bordering Poland and Lithuania.
REMOVING RIVALS
Ahead of the vote, authorities blocked the few genuine competitors who tried to stand in the contest.
Those on the ballot box are seen as no real threats to Putin as they all support his policies.
Russian authorities warned against protests during the March 15-17 presidential vote after calls from the opposition for anti-Putin demonstrations on Sunday.
The presidential election was held without Alexei Navalny, Putin’s most high-profile opponent over the last decade, who died at age 47 in February in an Arctic prison colony.
Navalny was jailed for 19 years on charges of “extremism,” a sentence seen by his family and supporters as retribution for his campaign against Putin, who has ruled Russia for 24 years.
Yet the 71-year-old Kremlin leader suggested that he is the right man to continue leading a nation armed with nuclear weapons that he hasn’t ruled out using against Western targets.
“We have already shown that we can be together, defending the freedom, sovereignty, and security of Russia,” Putin said in a video message, flanked by flags of the Russian tricolor and the president’s state emblem.
“Today, it is critically important not to stray from this path,” he added.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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