RIGA, Latvia — On the first day of a presidential election widely seen as the least competitive campaign since the fall of the Soviet Union, some Russian voters expressed their anger in stunning individual protests across the country — setting fire to polling booths or pouring green antiseptic fluid or dye into ballot boxes.
At least five people, including several older women, set polling booths on fire, burned ballot papers or threw incendiary devices at polling stations, according to Russian independent media — a wave of highly unusual protest actions in a nation challenged by President Vladimir Putin’s two-year-old war in Ukraine and harsh political repressions.
The election is significant because it sees Putin once again ditching the constitutional term limits designed to prevent an autocrat staying in power for decades. Instead, he has done exactly that, and is now guaranteed victory for another term running until 2030.
The election has been widely criticized for its lack of democratic choice, with antiwar candidates and genuine opposition figures barred from running, and with the Kremlin maintaining tight control over the media, security services and the election commission.
Russia’s Central Election Commission on Friday called for tighter security at polling stations as the protest incidents unfolded and warned citizens they could face up to five years in prison for such attacks.
Russian election chief Ella Pamfilova also reported a massive hacking effort, with more than 10,000 cyberattacks by 5 p.m. Friday.
Many Russians spoiled their ballot papers or marked their votes against Putin.
Some wrote the name of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died recently in prison. Others scrawled slogans protesting Putin’s move to cling to power for a fifth term or calling for Russian soldiers to be demobilized, with the war against Ukraine now in its third year and continuing to result in heavy casualties, according to photographs of ballot papers that were posted on independent Russian Telegram channels.
Two people in Moscow and the surrounding region set polling booths on fire, according to Russian media, while another woman attempted to do so in the town of Kogalym, in the Khanty-Mansi region. An elderly woman in Ivanovo also set fire to a polling booth in a school, local media reported.
A 21-year-old woman in St Petersburg threw a molotov cocktail outside a polling station, according to Fontanka, a local media outlet.
Six people in regions across the country poured green antiseptic fluid or dye into ballot boxes, with another case reported in occupied Crimea, Ukraine — one of the five Ukrainian regions that Russia illegally claims to have annexed, and where Russia is holding elections.
Alexander Kynev, an independent political analyst and former professor at in the political science faculty of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, who lives outside of Russia, said the attacks undermined the picture Russian authorities had hoped to create of a smooth election.
“This is not good for the authorities at all, because now the information picture is just full of this,” Kynev said. “It shows the dissatisfaction in the society.”
“There’s a large part of society who don’t support the authorities. They’re stuck in Russia, desperately frustrated and very depressed,” he continued. “Today can be interpreted as an expression of this depression.” Kynev said it was possible that anti-Putin forces outside of Russia had organized the protest actions.
The embassies of Great Britain and Australia issued statements condemning Russia for holding elections in occupied Ukraine.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the United States embassy listed the names of writers, journalists, political scientists, and business executives whose criticism has been silenced, with the words, “Who’s next?” adding that they “deserve the right to speak out in their own country.”
European Council President Charles Michel sardonically congratulated Putin “on his landslide victory in the elections starting today” in a post on X. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice,” Michel posted.
Those who set fire to polling stations or poured fluid into ballot boxes were detained and Russia’s Investigative Committee announced criminal charges against a Moscow woman who threw fluid into a ballot box for “hindering the execution of electoral rights or work of the election commission.”
Voting in the election takes place from Friday to Sunday, leaving ample opportunity for tampering with ballot boxes. In 27 regions and two in occupied Ukraine, voters can also use a widely criticized opaque online voting system, with no way to verify votes or guard against manipulation.
The Russian president was supposed to leave power this year after four terms, but he engineered constitutional changes in 2020 enabling him to potentially remain in power until 2036.
Putin has ruled Russia since 2000, and was actually due to leave office in 2008 when he first hit up against term limits. Instead, he swapped jobs with then prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, and then returned as president in 2012, sparking some of the biggest protests in Russian history.
Putin’s increasingly repressive regime has jailed critics while opposition leaders such as Navalny, Boris Nemtsov and others have been killed, jailed or have fled Russia.
Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya accused Putin of ordering the murder of her husband after he died in the “Polar Wolf” prison last month and she has called on Western governments not to recognize Putin as president after an election that she and other opposition figures have condemned as fraudulent.
Other Putin critics including Vladimir Kara-Murza, serving 25 years in prison for treason, have also demanded that Western leaders refuse to recognize the election or Putin as the legitimate president.
Before his death, Navalny had urged voters to demonstrate their opposition to Putin by all turning up at voting stations at noon on Sunday and voting for anyone but him, in a protest called “Noon Against Putin.”
Many Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu voted on Friday, in an apparent effort to mobilize Russians to cast ballots early. Putin voted online Friday. Russian media has reported that the Kremlin expects a turnout of at least 70 percent, and more than 80 percent of the votes to be cast for Putin.
In some polling stations there was a circus atmosphere, with prizes handed out, free pancakes, people voting wearing fancy dress, singers performing, or folk dancers whirling.
One polling station in the Tyumen region in Siberia had a life-size cardboard cutout depicting right-wing American commentator Tucker Carlson, a recent star on Russia-state television because of his criticism of the United States is often in sync with the Kremlin.
Many state employees and workers in government-owned enterprises were being forced to vote early and send their bosses photographs of themselves casting ballots or pictures of their ballots, according to Russian media.
Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report