Thousands of people flocked to polling stations across Russia on Sunday to take part in what the anti-Kremlin opposition said was a peaceful but symbolic political protest against President Vladimir Putin's re-election.
In an action dubbed "Noon Against Putin," Russians who oppose the veteran Kremlin leader went to their local polling station at noon to void their ballots in protest or to vote for one of three candidates opposing Putin. , who is widely expected. win by a landslide.
Others had promised to scribble on their ballots the name of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died last month in an Arctic prison.
Navalny's allies broadcast videos on YouTube of lines of people queuing at different polling stations across Russia at midday who they said were there to peacefully protest.
Navalny had endorsed the "Noon Against Putin" plan in a social media message provided by his lawyers before he died. The independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta called the planned action "Navalny's political testament."
"There is very little hope, but if you can do something (like this) you should do it. There is nothing left of democracy," said a young woman, who did not give her name and whose face was erased by Navalny's team. at a polling station.
Another young woman, at another polling station, whose identity had been disguised in the same way, said that she had voted for the "least doubtful" of the three candidates competing against Putin.
A student voting in Moscow told Navalny's channel that people like him who disagreed with the current system should continue living their lives regardless.
"History has shown that changes occur at the most unexpected times," he said. Despite the protesters, who represent a small fraction of Russia's 114 million voters, Putin is prepared to tighten his grip on power in elections that are sure to give him a big victory.
The Kremlin labels Navalny's political allies, most of whom are based outside Russia, as dangerous extremists seeking to destabilize the country on behalf of the West. He says Putin enjoys overwhelming support among ordinary Russians, pointing to opinion polls that put his approval rating above 80%.
Since Russia's vast landmass stretches across 11 time zones, protest voters were dispersed rather than concentrated in a single mass, making it difficult to estimate how many people attended the protest event.
The size of the queues at each polling station shown on Navalny's channel varied from a few dozen people to what seemed like several hundred people.
Reuters journalists observed a slight increase in the flow of voters, especially young people, at midday at some polling stations in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, with queues of several hundred people. Some said they were protesting, although there were few outward signs to distinguish them from ordinary voters.
Leonid Volkov, an exiled Navalny aide who was attacked with a hammer last week in Vilnius, estimated that hundreds of thousands of people had turned out at polling stations in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and other cities.
At the polling stations of Russian diplomatic missions from Australia and Japan to Armenia, Kazakhstan and Georgia, hundreds of Russians were queuing at midday.
The widow of the Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, was today in Berlin in the queue of Russians who were going to vote in the Russian presidential elections, and she did so around 12:00 to support the protest campaign "Noon without Putin" that she herself supported in a recent video message.
Navalny's former spokesperson, Kira Yarmish, who continues to work on the cause of the deceased opponent, published a video on the social network
Amid applause from her compatriots, Navalnaya smiles slightly at the support she received. With a bouquet of flowers that someone gave him, he waited his turn, but without wanting to make statements. Dmitri, a young Russian, told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper that he spoke briefly with Navalnaya, to tell her "that he is very brave." She did not reveal who Alexei Navalny's widow was going to vote for or whether she was going to leave the ballot empty, he said.
