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Russians formed long lines outside Moscow’s embassy in the European capital on Sunday to vote in the final day of an extended presidential election.The true identity of President Vladimir PutinUre.
Anti-Putin rallies organized to honor the memory of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny gathered at several polling stations.
His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, accepted flowers from supporters and chatted with other voters in a long line outside the Russian embassy in Berlin.
Navalny’s supporters had called on people to go to the polls and waste their ballots in the “Noon Anti-Putin” protests.
Navalny, Putin’s most prominent rival, died mysteriously in an Arctic prison last month.
“I will use my ballot as a flyer,” Tatyana Leontseva, 43, said as she waited her turn to vote outside the Russian embassy in Paris.
“I’m going to write to Mr. Navalny and say that Mr. Putin is unfair,” he told AFP.
“There is a desire to somehow change the situation,” said Vyacheslav Dorofeyev, who works at a French bank.
– “Make Putin’s job more difficult” –
Police have detained a 54-year-old man in Moldova after two petrol bombs were thrown at the Russian embassy, according to reports.
“He had some dissatisfaction with the actions of the Russian authorities and justified his actions,” police said.
There were no reports of violence elsewhere.
In Istanbul, the line outside the Russian consulate reached several hundred meters long, with many arriving for the promise of a midday protest.
“We want to make Putin’s job more difficult,” Yuri said. Like his colleague Elena, who wears yellow, the color of the Ukrainian flag, declined to give his last name.
The couple said they fled Russia in December 2022.
“When Mr. Navalny died, I was shocked and cried. That’s why I came at noon today,” said Vadim, a 31-year-old Russian who is married to a Ukrainian.
In Belgrade, activists held up banners reading “Putin is not Russia”, drawing applause from many of the hundreds of people lining up to vote.
“Some people are planning to spoil the ballot and make it invalid by voting for more than one candidate,” said activist and founder of the local organization Democratic Russia. Peter Nikitin said. “If I have time, I will do the same,” he told AFP.
~ “Save the world” ~
Not all voters opposed Putin’s reelection.
“How can you be against President Putin?” said a Russian man living in Paris, who declined to give his name. “He’s saving the world.”
Svetlana Myasnikova, a 53-year-old teacher, said she too would vote for Putin. “He is the best president ever,” she told AFP at the Paris embassy.
In The Hague, thousands of people formed a line hundreds of meters outside the embassy where police blocked off the road.
Local media said some wore blue and white, the colors of the Russian opposition, while others sang protest songs, waved Ukrainian flags and placed flowers near Navalny’s photo. It is said that some people did so.
“Everything that is happening with Putin and Russia must be abolished,” the protester said, according to public broadcaster NOS. “Fair elections must be held.”
～“Senseless war”～
Anastasia Korobova, 44, a Russian activist born in Kazakhstan, said in Tallinn: “So many people don’t want war. No,” he said.
In Vilnius, an estimated 500 people gathered, some holding up posters of Navalny that read, “Putin killed Navalny.”
“We understand that this is a symbolic rally, but we also know that many dictatorships have collapsed after similar events,” Ivan Zhdanov, who runs Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, told AFP. “There is,” he said.
Olga, 40, who declined to give her last name, also told the gathering: “Russia is gradually becoming a concentration camp where you can’t speak.”
But Andrei, a 66-year-old construction worker, told AFP he voted for “stability”.
In war, he said, “you choose people who have experience.”
Many Western governments had already accused Russia’s election of fraud.
On Sunday, Germany’s Foreign Ministry called the vote a “pseudo election.”
On X (formerly Twitter), they said it was “neither free nor fair, and the outcome should surprise no one.”
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