More than a third of Russia's eligible voters cast ballots in person and online on the first day of the country's three-day presidential election, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) said after polls closed on March 15 in the country's westernmost region of Kaliningrad.
Russians began casting ballots earlier in the day in an election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.
The Kremlin released a video showing Putin calmly voting online from a computer in a government office, and the TsIK said voting proceeded in an orderly fashion across the country, but there were numerous reports of vandalism at polling stations along with more than a dozen arrests.
The vote, which is not expected to be free and fair, is the first major election to take place in Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.
Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians -- 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 -- whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin's.
Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk's decision was upheld by Russia's Supreme Court.
"Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today," European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter.
"No opposition. No freedom. No choice."
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Green Dye And Fire Spoil Ballot Boxes In Incidents Across Russia
Voters cast their ballots at nearly 100,000 polling stations across the country's 11 time zones, as well as in regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed. Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in those Ukrainian regions, calling it illegal, and on March 15 UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to the criticism.
Guterres "condemns the efforts of the Russian Federation to hold its presidential elections in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, adding that the "attempted illegal annexation" of those regions has "no validity" under international law.
SEE ALSO: In A Whirlwind Of War And Repression, Putin Set To Secure Six More Years In PowerThere were reports that public sector employees were being urged to vote early on March 15, a directive Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of the Golos voters' rights movement, said was aimed at having workers vote "under the watchful eyes of their bosses."
The outcome, with Putin's foes in jail, exile, or dead, is not in doubt. In a survey conducted by VTsIOM in early March, 75 percent of the citizens intending to vote said they would cast their ballot for Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer.
The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched, but it has been ratcheted up since. Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin's most vocal critic, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.
Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.
Most say they have no expectation that the election will be free and fair, with the possibility for independent monitoring very limited.
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Russian Opposition Plans 'Noon Against Putin' Election Protests
"Who in the world thinks that it will be a real election?" Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with Current Time ahead of the vote.
Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public's discontent with both the war and Putin's iron-fisted rule. He called on voters to cast their ballot at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action Noon Against Putin. HIs wife and others have since continued to call for the protest to be carried out.
Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has promoted it.
"We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin....What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot," Navalnaya said.