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Video: Polling station set on fire on election day in Russia
Russian officials said several people were detained on the first day of voting in the presidential election on charges of damaging property at polling stations.
According to state media, green dye was poured into ballot boxes, the boxes were set on fire and fireworks were set off inside the polling station.
After the vote, it became certain that Vladimir Putin would win another six-year term.
However, authorities urged law enforcement officers to be vigilant.
Voting in Russia is taking place over three days until Sunday. The result is not in doubt because Putin has no credible opponent, but state media said turnout in Moscow had reached 23% by late afternoon.
Most of the incidents were reported at polling stations in Moscow, Voronezh in southern Russia and the Karachay-Cherkessia region in the North Caucasus, state news agency TASS said.
BBC Verify has so far examined footage of six incidents across Russia, including footage of a woman throwing a petrol bomb near a polling station in St Petersburg.
Other verified videos showed paint being poured into ballot boxes at various polling stations. In one photo, a woman was seen pouring a bright green liquid into a box in Moscow. Another video showed a fire breaking out at a polling station.
Russia is also forcing voting in occupied areas of Ukraine. In the small town of Skadovsk, an improvised device exploded in a trash can outside a polling station, but no one was injured, Russian-appointed officials said.
At least eight people were arrested, but authorities have not said whether the vandalism was a protest against Mr. Putin.
Some of those who destroyed the ballot boxes were reportedly shouting pro-Ukrainian slogans, according to several videos posted on Telegram.
Officials said there were five incidents of dye being dropped into ballot boxes across Russia.
Nikolai Bulayev, deputy head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, announced on Friday that there had been five incidents in which liquid was poured into ballot boxes.
Electoral Commission President Ella Pamfilova described the saboteurs as “sneaky bastards” and said some of those detained for destroying boxes with dye did it for money. Some people said they recognized it. They could face up to five years in prison, it added.
One of those detained had been promised a payment of 100,000 rubles (850 pounds, $1,080), she said.
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic, called on Kremlin opponents to go to polling stations en masse at midday on Sunday to protest the election. Her husband, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in an Arctic prison last month.
Navalnaya has called on the West not to recognize Putin for a fifth term as president, and the NATO secretary-general said the vote would not be free and fair.
Polling stations will open on Russia’s easternmost Kamchatka Peninsula at 8am local time on Friday (8pm Thursday Japan time), and will finally close in the westernmost Kaliningrad enclave at 8pm on Sunday.
Verified by Richard Irvine Brown, BBC Verify
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