Russians have begun voting in a three-day presidential election amid an ongoing conflict and a barrage of deadly attacks on border regions.
A country spread across 11 different time zones, the booths were first open to voters at 8:00 am on Friday (2000 GMT Thursday) on the Far Eastern Kamchatka peninsula.
Polling stations will conclude their activities on Sunday at 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) in Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, which is situated between the European Union members Poland and Lithuania.
For the first time in a presidential election, Russians have the option to vote online. Authorities report that over 200,000 Moscow residents cast their votes digitally shortly after the opening of the polls.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appealed to the Russian people to stand by him during a trying period for the country, delivering a pre-election message that was broadcast on state TV on Thursday.
“I am convinced: you realize what a difficult period our country is going through, what complex challenges we are facing in almost all areas,” Putin said.
“And in order to continue to respond to them with dignity and successfully overcome difficulties, we need to continue to be united and self-confident.
“We have already shown that we can be together, defending the freedom, sovereignty and security of Russia … Today it is critically important not to stray from this path,” he added.
Leonid Slutsky of the Liberal Democratic Party, Vladislav Davankov of the New People Party and Nikolay Kharitonov of the Communist Party are the three other candidates approved by Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC).
According to Kremlin experts, Putin, 71, who is running for his fifth term, will emerge victorious of the polling, and will secure another six-year term.
Moscow authorities have issued a cautionary statement, advising against any form of protest during the upcoming presidential vote scheduled from March 15-17, which comes in response to the opposition’s call for anti-Putin demonstrations on Sunday.
Alexei Navalny, a prominent adversary of Putin for the past ten years, passed away in February while imprisoned in an Arctic penal colony. He had been sentenced to 19 years for “extremism”.
The Friday vote comes as the Kremlin has made its first territorial gains in Ukraine in months. War experts say that Russia possesses the upper hand in the field of combat, where it is achieving modest progress, albeit at a gradual pace.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that at least three separate waves of aerial attacks had killed two people, wounding several others.
He said Ukraine was trying to “sow panic, distrust, anger and resentment, in order to break the unit of our society”.
