Russian President Vladimir Putin won a record 88% in the country’s presidential election Sunday, exit polls showed – as citizens opposed to his strongman rule threw Molotov cocktails and firecrackers at polling sites and poured ink in ballot boxes to protest the vote.
Putin, who came into power in 1999, secured a new six-year term as president, overtaking Josef Stalin as Russia’s longest-serving leader in more than 200 years.
But the Russian president was not without his detractors, with foes caught on tape destroying and sabotaging ballot boxes in opposition to a victory that many considered fixed from the start.
Vladimir Putin looks to have won 88 percent of a tightly controlled vote. MIKHAIL METZEL/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA-EFE/ShutterstockA compilation video of the early days of voting, uploaded by the Russian-language outlet Medusa, shows several incidents where protesters set fire to ballot boxes and polling sites across the nation.
One 21-year-old woman threw a Molotov cocktail onto the porch of a polling site in St. Petersburg, according to Medusa.
Russian Central Election Commission Deputy Chair Nikolai Bulaev confirmed incidents in the Rostov and Karachay-Cherkessia regions where protesters also poured ink into ballot boxes.
Officials in Moscow and Voronezh said protesters flooded the ballot boxes there with ink, too.
The Kremlin claimed the stunts were spearheaded by Ukraine, which Russia invaded two years ago and is still trying to conquer.
A person shows a poster with a face covered by a “Z”, which used as a symbol by Russian forces, during a protest near the polling station at the Russian embassy in Berlin, on Sunday. AP“Clearly they’ve been promised money and rewards,” Bulaev said of the protesters in a statement at an election commision meeting Friday, the first of three days of voting.
The woman who threw the Molotov cocktail in St. Petersburg allegedly told police the “Ukrainian Telegram channel” had promised to pay her for creating the fire, according to the Russian outlet Fontanka.
She and some of the other protesters were taken into custody.
Despite the protests, Putin won 87.8% of the vote, the highest ever result in Russia’s post-Soviet history, according to an exit poll by pollster FOM.
Yulia Navalnaya, centre, widow of Alexey Navalny, stands in a queue with other voters at a polling station near the Russian embassy in Berlin, after noon local time, on Sunday. APThe Russian Public Opinion Research Centre put Putin on 87%.
The landslide victory shows the overwhelming support behind the former KGB spy.
The Russian president’s win occurred despite calls from the supporters of his most prominent opponent, the late Alexei Navalny, who urged their fellow citizens to come out at a “Noon against Putin” protest to voice their dissent against his government.
There were no official, independent tallies on how many of Russia’s 114 million voters took part in the protests, which drew tens of thousands of police and security officials in response.
