Russian citizens living in Bosnia-Herzegovina will be able to vote in the Russian presidential election next month, the Balkan country’s Council of Ministers said on February 14.
The council granted consent for voting at two polling stations following a request by the Russian Embassy in Sarajevo.
Russian citizens will be able to vote for 12 hours at the main polling station in the Russian Embassy in the Bosnian capital starting at 8 a.m. on March 17, the final day of voting in Russia. Earlier in the month, on March 9, Russians will be able to cast ballots for four hours starting at 11 a.m. in the building of the company Optima Group in Banja Luka.
The owner of Optima Group is the Russian company NeftegazInKor, an affiliate of Zarubezhneft, a Russian state-owned oil and gas company that operates in Bosnia as Nestro company, running oil refineries in Brod and Modrica as well as a cluster of gas stations across Bosnia.
It is not known how many Russian citizens will vote in Bosnia.
The Russian Embassy in Albania has also confirmed that it will have a polling station for the upcoming presidential elections in Russia. Russian citizens will also be able to vote in Russian embassies in North Macedonia, the country's Foreign Ministry confirmed earlier to RFE/RL.
RFE/RL couldn’t confirm whether it will be possible for Russians to vote in Montenegro and Serbia. About 25,000 Russian citizens live in Montenegro and 30,000 live in Serbia, according to official sources.
Russian citizens residing in Kosovo will most likely be able to vote online, the Russian government's office in that country confirmed to RFE/RL.
The presidential elections in Russia are scheduled to take place on March 15-17. Incumbent Vladimir Putin, who has run the country as president or prime minister since 1999, is expected to win another six-year term. No serious challenger to Putin has emerged amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent and opposition.
The 71-year-old Putin, who gained the right to seek two more six-year terms under constitutional amendments passed in 2020, is already the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who died in 1953 at the age of 74.
In addition to Putin, the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) confirmed the names of three other candidates -- Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party -- all of whom support the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The TsIK last week refused to register Boris Nadezhdin, the only candidate who openly advocates ending the war in Ukraine and who speaks against Putin's policies.
The TsIK, which routinely refuses to register would-be opposition candidates on the pretext that they submitted an insufficient number of valid signatures, ruled on February 8 that only 95,587 signatures collected by Nadezhdin's supporters were valid, while 100,000 signatures must be collected to register a presidential candidate.