MOSCOW, March 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russia arrested at least 13 people Friday for vandalising polling stations on the first day of its presidential elections, officials said.
President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to secure another six years in power after the three-day vote, which he has cast as a show of unity for his offensive in Ukraine.
Authorities did not say if the protests were directed against Putin, and state-media reports said voting would continue as normal despite the incidents.
In Moscow, video showed a polling station filled with smoke after a woman set a voting booth alight. She was later detained by police, state media reported.
Another video in the capital showed a woman pouring dye into a ballot box. She was detained and charged with “obstructing the exercise of electoral rights”, investigators said.
Seven others were detained for pouring liquid onto ballots, including in the Russian regions of Volgograd, Voronezh, Karachay-Cherkessia and Rostov.
A 31-year-old woman was detained for pouring dye into a ballot box in annexed Crimea, while in occupied south Ukraine, proxy officials said explosives were detonated at a polling station.
Two women in Siberia and Saint Petersburg were detained for throwing Molotov cocktails at polling stations. In the Chelyabinsk region, a man was arrested for lighting a firecracker during voting.
Russia’s election chief Ella Pamfilova said the incidents bore the hallmarks of “terrorism” and said “scumbags from abroad” were to blame.
“This is not ordinary, simple hooliganism,” she was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency. — NNN-AGENCIES
