Russia presidential polls 2024: Moscow accuses Ukraine of election sabotage

The presidential elections in Russia entered the thirdand final day on Sunday (Mar 17) with Moscow accusing Ukraine of using air attacks to try to sabotage the polls. Citing local Russian officials, a report by the news agency Reuters said that Ukrainian forces continued their strikes on Russian regions along the Ukraine border. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not address the reported attacks in his nightly video address on Saturday.

On Friday, the first day of the elections, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt the polls with its intensified drone and missile attacks inside Russia and on Moscow-held territory in Ukraine.

More than half of the Russian voters havecast their votes on Friday and Saturday. The elections are expected to keep President Putin in power for another six terms.

'Noon against Putin'

Sunday will test the strength of the country's opposition, which called for all its supporters to vote at the same time at noon, in an action called "Noon Against Putin." This initiative has been endorsed by the now-deceased Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's wife Yulia Navalnaya.

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Supporters of Navalny called on people across Russia to vote at the same time at noon on Sunday in each of the country's 11 time zones. "Today we want to say to all of us - noon is the very beginning. Yes, some of us are scared. Yes, the choice is not easy. But we are the people. And we will cope with both the choice and the responsibility," the initiative wrote on Telegram on Sunday.

Ukrainians forced to vote at gunpoint

With Russia accusing Ukraine of sabotaging the elections, Ukrainians living in territories occupied by Russian forces were allegedly being forced to vote at gunpoint.

A report by The Washington Post early Sunday said that heavily armed, masked Russian soldiers were accompanying election officials going from house to house and forcing Ukrainians to vote.

Yevheniia Hliebova, the head of the Novomykolaivka village military administration in Kherson, described the situation as an election at gunpoint. Hliebova, who has left the occupied region, told the publication that Ukrainians who refused to vote were threatened with repercussions.

(With inputs from agencies)