Russia Watch Thread

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[Time_Traveller]

Noon Against Putin: Alexei Navalny’s final plan to disrupt Russia’s sham elections

2 hours ago

Russian citizens will spend this weekend casting their vote for their next president, even though the result has already been decided.

Vladimir Putin, already the longest-serving ruler of Russia since Joseph Stalin, will win a fifth and unconstitutional term after polls close on Sunday.

No amount of votes against him can prevent his victory, say the Russian dissident community, since the system is rigged and those that could challenge him have either been killed, imprisoned or exiled.

“It’s impossible to win against Putin’s regime through legitimate means,” says Evgenia Chirikova, who once unsuccessfully ran to be a local mayor in a Moscow suburb, with the help of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny. She is now in exile in Estonia, having had her life threatened by the authorities.

But the Russian dissident community has nevertheless convened a plan to disturb this rubber-stamping exercise.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 11903.html

[Time_Traveller]

Russia election: Arrests for vandalism as ballot boxes targeted in Putin vote

34 minutes ago



Several people have been detained for vandalism at polling stations on a first day of voting in presidential elections, Russian officials say.

Incidents involved green dye being poured into ballot boxes, ballot boxes being set alight or fireworks being set off inside polling stations, state media reported.

Vladimir Putin is certain to win six more years in office after the vote.

However, officials have called on law enforcement officers to be vigilant.

Most of the incidents were reported at polling stations in Moscow, Voronezh in south Russia, and the region of Karachay-Cherkessia in the north Caucasus, according to state news agency Tass.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68576817

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[raklian]

The world knows the election is a sham. There is no doubt now Russia is a dictatorship.

[Time_Traveller]

The world knows the election is a sham. There is no doubt now Russia is a dictatorship.

Hmm, I thought it slowly getting there under him since becoming President in 1999.

[firestar464]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sh ... r-BB1kn5dA

Shooting, Explosions Kill at Least 40 at Moscow Concert Venue

[Powers]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sh ... r-BB1kn5dA

Shooting, Explosions Kill at Least 40 at Moscow Concert Venue

Seems to be ISIS.