Vote to cement Putin's rule amid Ukraine attacks, Navalny protests

Russians voted Sunday on the final day of an election to extend Vladimir Putin's rule to three decades, as Ukraine launched fatal attacks on the border and some voters crowded outside polling stations in protest.

The three-day vote had already been marked by a surge in fatal Ukrainian bombardments, incursions into Russian territory by pro-Kyiv sabotage groups and vandalism at polling stations.

The Kremlin has cast the election as an opportunity for Russians to throw their weight behind its full-scale military operation in Ukraine, where voting is also being staged in Russian-controlled territories.

Ukraine has slammed the ballot as illegitimate and urged the international community to reject Putin's inevitable new six-year mandate.

Supporters of the late Alexei Navalny -- Putin's most prominent rival, who died in an Arctic prison last month -- urged voters to pour into polling stations at noon and spoil their ballots for a "Midday Against Putin" protest.

His wife, Yulia Navalnaya was greeted by supporters with flowers and applause when she joined a long queue of voters at the Russian embassy in Berlin.

Some voters in Moscow appeared to heed Navalny's call, telling AFP they had come to honour his memory and show their opposition in the only legal way possible.

'Russia is not Putin' 

"I came to show that there are many of us, that we exist, that we are not some insignificant minority," said 19-year-old student Artem Minasyan at a polling station in central Moscow.

Leonid Volkov, a senior aide to the late opposition leader and who was recently attacked in Lithuania where he fled political persecution in Russia, thanked Russians for joining the noon protest.

"You saw each other. The whole world saw you. Russia is not Putin. Russia is you," he wrote on social media.

But other voters expressed their support for Putin, saying that casting their ballots for him was the only way to guarantee peace.

"What we want today, first of all, is peace," said 70-year-old pensioner Lyubov Pyankova.

She was standing in front of a polling station in Putin's native city of Saint Petersburg decorated with the red, white and blue 'V' logo -- a symbol associated with the military offensive -- that Moscow has also used to promote the vote.

Russia simply wanted "not to be disturbed, not to be told what to do", Pyankova said.

Tributes to Navalny 

At Navalny's grave in a Moscow cemetery, AFP reporters saw spoiled ballot papers with his name written on them left on a pile of flowers.

Navalny, who galvanised mass protests, tried to run against Putin in the 2018 presidential election and launched a nationwide campaign but his candidacy was rejected.

"We live in a country where we will go to jail if we speak our mind. So when I come to moments like this and see a lot of people, I realise that we are not alone," said 33-year-old Regina, holding an electronic cigarette.

There were repeated acts of protest in the first days of polling, with a spate of arrests of Russians accused of pouring dye into ballot boxes or arson attacks.

Any public dissent in Russia has been harshly punished since the start of Moscow's offensive in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and there have been repeated warnings from the authorities against election protests.

The OVD-Info police monitoring group announced that at least 74 people had been detained across nearly 20 cities in Russia for protest actions linked to the elections.

Meanwhile a surge in Ukrainian strikes on Russia continued unabated with the Russian defence ministry reporting at least eight regions attacked overnight and on Sunday morning.

Fatal border attacks 

Three airports serving the capital briefly suspended operations following the barrage, while a drone attack in the south sparked a fire at an oil refinery.

In Russia's border city of Belgorod, multiple rounds of shelling killed two -- a man and a 16-year-old girl -- and injured 12 more, the region's governor said Sunday.

The governor has ordered the closure of shopping centres and schools in Belgorod and the surrounding area for two days because of the strikes.

In the Russian-controlled territory of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, where voting is also taking place, "kamikaze drones" set a polling station ablaze, according to Moscow-installed authorities.

'Difficult period' 

The 71-year-old Putin, a former KGB agent, has been in power since the last day of 1999 and is set to extend his grip over the country until at least 2030.

If he completes another Kremlin term, he will have stayed in power longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.

He is running without any real opponents, having barred two candidates who opposed the conflict in Ukraine.

In a pre-election address on Thursday, Putin said Russia was going through a "difficult period".

"We need to continue to be united and self-confident," he said, describing the election as a way for Russians to demonstrate "patriotic feelings".

The voting will wrap up in Kaliningrad, Russia's westernmost time zone, at 1800 GMT and an exit poll is expected to be announced shortly afterwards.

A concert on Red Square is being staged on Monday to mark 10 years since Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula -- an event that is also expected to serve as a victory celebration for Putin.

Ahead of the election, Russian state media have played up recent gains on the front and portrayed the conflict as a fight for survival against attacks from the West.