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Independent Russian vote monitoring group says presidential election most corrupt in country's history
An independent Russian vote monitoring group has said that the presidential election that Vladimir Putin won in a landslide with nearly 90% of the vote was the most fraudulent and corrupt in the country’s history.
Golos (Voice) said the three-day election that ended on Sunday could not be considered genuine because “the campaign took place in a situation where the fundamental articles of the Russian constitution, guaranteeing political rights and freedoms, were essentially not in effect”.
“Never before have we seen a presidential campaign that fell so far short of constitutional standards,” the group said in a statement.
Founded in 2000, Golos is the only Russian electoral watchdog independent of the authorities. Branded a “foreign agent” in 2013, it was barred from sending observers to polling stations. One of its leaders, Grigory Melkonyants, is in prison awaiting trial on what Golos says are politicised charges.
The government claimed turnout was the highest in history at 74% of the electorate. Putin’s previous highest result came in 2018, when he purported to earn 76.7% of the vote with a 67.5% turnout.
Voting took place in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine: Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.
Putin has faced no meaningful contest after the authorities barred two candidates who had voiced their opposition to the war in Ukraine.
Three other politicians running in the election did not directly question Putin’s authority and their participation was meant to add an air of legitimacy to the race.
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Russian interior ministry launches 61 criminal cases after presidential election - report
BBC News has reported that 61 criminal cases were launched by the Russian interior ministry following the presidential election.
Sixty-one criminal cases have been launched by the Russian interior ministry, and 150 administrative offence acts have been issued, during the 15-17 March presidential election, the Interfax news agency reports.
Deputy interior minister Alexander Gorovoy has been quoted by the Moscow-based news agency saying the largest number of criminal cases were for announcing a deliberately false act of terrorism (23) and for obstructing voters in exercising their rights (21).
Gorovoy claims that ministry departments had received “1,400 statements and reports of violations and possible crimes”, and that 547 hoax bomb threats were made during the three-day election period.
As we’ve been reporting, at least 80 people have been arrested across Russia for allegedly vandalising polling stations.
Independent Russian vote monitoring group says presidential election most corrupt in country's history
An independent Russian vote monitoring group has said that the presidential election that Vladimir Putin won in a landslide with nearly 90% of the vote was the most fraudulent and corrupt in the country’s history.
Golos (Voice) said the three-day election that ended on Sunday could not be considered genuine because “the campaign took place in a situation where the fundamental articles of the Russian constitution, guaranteeing political rights and freedoms, were essentially not in effect”.
“Never before have we seen a presidential campaign that fell so far short of constitutional standards,” the group said in a statement.
Founded in 2000, Golos is the only Russian electoral watchdog independent of the authorities. Branded a “foreign agent” in 2013, it was barred from sending observers to polling stations. One of its leaders, Grigory Melkonyants, is in prison awaiting trial on what Golos says are politicised charges.
The government claimed turnout was the highest in history at 74% of the electorate. Putin’s previous highest result came in 2018, when he purported to earn 76.7% of the vote with a 67.5% turnout.
Voting took place in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine: Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.
Putin has faced no meaningful contest after the authorities barred two candidates who had voiced their opposition to the war in Ukraine.
Three other politicians running in the election did not directly question Putin’s authority and their participation was meant to add an air of legitimacy to the race.
The UK’s defence secretary, Grant Shapps, said on X: “Putin has stolen another election, but he will not steal Ukraine.”
A German government spokesperson said the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, would not congratulate Vladimir Putin on his re-election because “the result was predetermined”.
US senator Lindsey Graham arrives in Kyiv
Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina senator and foreign policy hawk who has long advocated arming Ukraine against Russian invaders, has arrived in Kyiv.
“Unwavering US support is critical to Ukraine’s success in confronting an illegal full-scale war with Russia,” the US embassy captioned the photo of his arrival by train.
Graham is a prominent ally of Donald Trump, the former president and prospective Republican presidential nominee who is generally held to favour Russia and Putin.
Last month, he voted against a $95bn defence and foreign aid package that would significantly boost Kyiv.
Summary of the day so far...
The Kremlin said that the only way to protect Russian territory from Ukrainian attacks was to create a buffer zone that would put Russian regions beyond the reach of Ukrainian fire. In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “Against the backdrop of (Ukrainian) drone attacks and the shelling of our territory: public facilities, residential buildings, measures must be taken to secure these territories. They can only be secured by creating some kind of buffer zone so that any means that the enemy uses to strike us are out of range.” It came as the local governor said on Monday that two people were killed and four more injured in Ukrainian shelling of the village of Nikolskoye in Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.
Western leaders and ministers have denounced what they have described as a sham Russian election, in which Vladimir Putin won a fifth term as Russian president by a landslide of about 87%, according to exit polls. The EU has said the Russian election took place in a highly restricted environment “exacerbated by Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine”. Latvian minister Krišjānis Kariņš said: “Russia will not stop, they can only be stopped. Ukraine is prepared to do the stopping but they need our assistance.”
China’s president, Xi Jinping, congratulated Vladimir Putin on winning another term as Russia’s president and said China was set to maintain close communication with Russia to promote their partnership, according to Chinese state media. “Your re-election is a full demonstration of the support of the Russian people for you,” Xi was quoted as saying by Xinhua News. “I believe that under your leadership, Russia will certainly be able to achieve greater achievements in national development and construction.”
Adding to western condemnation of the Russian presidential election outcome and process, the UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said the outcome of Russia’s election highlighted the “depth of repression” in the country under Vladimir Putin. “These Russian elections starkly underline the depth of repression under President Putin’s regime, which seeks to silence any opposition to his illegal war,” Cameron, who is a former Conservative prime minister, said in a statement, referring to the war in Ukraine. “Putin removes his political opponents, controls the media, and then crowns himself the winner. This is not democracy.”
Donald Trump’s continuing lavish praise and support for Russian president Vladimir Putin is fuelling alarm among former intelligence officials and other experts who fear another Trump presidency would benefit Moscow and harm American democracy and interests overseas.
Trump praised Putin as a “genius” and “pretty savvy” when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, and has boasted he would end the war in a “day”, sparking critics’ fears that if he’s elected again Trump would help Russia achieve a favourable peace deal by cutting off aid to Kyiv. Trump also recently greenlit Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to Nato members who don’t pay enough to the alliance.
“Trump views Putin as a strongman,” said Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution and a national security official in the first two years of Trump’s administration. “In a way they’re working in parallel because they’re both trying to weaken the US, but for very different reasons.”
More recently, instead of criticising Putin for the death of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading opposition figure, who the Kremlin once tried to kill with poison, and who died suddenly last month in an Arctic penal colony, Trump weirdly equated the four criminal prosecutions he faces with Navalny’s fate as political prisoners.
You can read the full story by my colleague, Peter Stone, here:
Kremlin says creation of a 'buffer zone' is necessary to protect Russian territory from Ukrainian attacks
The Kremlin said that the only way to protect Russian territory from Ukrainian attacks was to create a buffer zone that would put Russian regions beyond the reach of Ukrainian fire, Reuters reports.
In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said:
Against the backdrop of (Ukrainian) drone attacks and the shelling of our territory: public facilities, residential buildings, measures must be taken to secure these territories.
They can only be secured by creating some kind of buffer zone so that any means that the enemy uses to strike us are out of range.
Putin did not rule out setting up such a buffer zone after winning his fifth term as Russian president in the election, which has been widely condemned as illegitimate.
“I do not exclude that, bearing in mind the tragic events taking place today, that we will be forced at some point, when we deem it appropriate, to create a certain ‘sanitary zone’ in the territories today under the Kyiv regime,” Putin said.
The Russian president said such a zone might have to be big enough to stop foreign-made weapons striking Russian territory.
He spoke after being asked whether he thought it necessary for Russia to take Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, which borders Belgorod, a Russian province that has come under regular attack from Ukrainian forces since 2022.
David Cameron: Russian election outcome shows 'depth of repression' under Putin
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said the outcome of Russia’s election highlighted the “depth of repression” in the country under Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
“These Russian elections starkly underline the depth of repression under President Putin’s regime, which seeks to silence any opposition to his illegal war,” Cameron, who is a former Conservative prime minister, said in a statement, referring to the war in Ukraine.
“Putin removes his political opponents, controls the media, and then crowns himself the winner. This is not democracy.”
Cameron said holding elections in Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia “is an abhorrent violation of the UN Charter and Ukrainian sovereignty” and adds those regions “will always be Ukrainian”.
Putin was standing for the six-year term against three candidates from parties who had not criticised his rule nor his invasion of Ukraine.
Polish farmers blocked two border crossings with Germany on Monday, local police said.
Farmers in Poland and across the EU have been calling for changes to restrictions placed on them by the EU’s Green Deal plan to tackle climate change, and for the re-imposition of customs duties on imports of agricultural products from Ukraine that were waived after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
On Monday, farmers blocked the Swiecko and Gubinek border crossings with Germany. A local police spokesperson said that the blockades started on Sunday and were scheduled to continue until Wednesday.
“Traffic in Swiecko and Gubinek is blocked, you cannot travel in either direction,” Marcin Maludy, a spokesperson for the police in nearby Gorzow Wielkopolski, was quoted by Reuters as saying.
Maludy said that the only possibility for trucks in the Lubusz region travelling to Germany was to go to Olszyn whereas cars could go through the remaining crossings in the region.
Polish farmers are planning mass protests across the country on Wednesday, keeping up pressure on officials to act on their demands.
They have a particular grievance because of increased competition from neighbouring non-EU Ukraine’s farmers, who they accuse of flooding EU markets with cheap imports that leave them unable to compete.
The EU lifted tariffs two years ago on Ukrainian imports after Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia subsequently imposed national bans on grain imports.
Two people were killed and four more injured in Ukrainian shelling of the village of Nikolskoye in Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, the local governor said on Monday.
Attacks on Belgorod have taken place frequently since 2022 but escalated in the run-up to Russia’s presidential election which concluded on Sunday.
Belgorod, a city and a region more than 600km from Moscow, is just over half an hour’s drive from the border with Ukraine, making it a vital stop for Russian supply lines, but also uniquely vulnerable.
