©Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel
The continuing Ukrainian incursions into and strikes on Russia's border regions are primarily aimed at disrupting the ongoing election in the country, President Vladimir Putin has said.
The president made the remarks on Friday during a meeting with permanent members of the Russian National Security Council. Putin condemned the efforts made by Kiev to disrupt the ongoing election, vowing retaliation for the attacks.
In order to disrupt the voting process and intimidate people, at least in the regions bordering Ukraine, the Kiev neo-Nazi regime has conceived and is trying to carry out a series of “demonstrative criminal armed actions,” Putin stated.
The effort includes continuous indiscriminate drone and artillery strikes, as well as a concentrated effort to breach the country’s border, launched by Ukrainian forces earlier this week, the president explained, describing Kiev’s actions as “senseless from the military, and criminal from a humanitarian standpoint.”
The escalation may also be used as a PR stunt for Kiev to show the Ukrainian public and its Western backers some military gains, Putin suggested. As for trying to intimidate the Russian people, the Ukrainian leadership will never achieve such a goal, with the country’s people responding to such actions only with “further consolidation,” he added.
“Another possible goal of such actions is to divert the attention of their own people and the public in other countries, whom the Kiev regime is trying to beg for money and all sorts of handouts, to divert attention from the real situation on the front line,” the president said.
According to Moscow’s estimates, the Ukrainian military has deployed over 2,500 servicemen, some 35 tanks and around 40 other armored vehicles to attack multiple locations along the border, Putin noted. All the attacks have been repelled, with the Ukrainians sustaining heavy personnel and material casualties.
Unfriendly Countries Tried to Disrupt Voting of Russians Abroad - Foreign Ministry
Unfriendly countries have tried to do everything to disrupt the process of voting of Russians abroad in the presidential election but they have failed, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
The spokeswoman was asked about the decrease in the number of polling stations abroad.
“But in terms of the number of [polling] stations, there are indeed significantly less this time. For one simple reason: these are precisely the actions of those very unfriendly regimes that are doing everything in order to prevent, disrupt, intimidate our citizens, and exert political pressure but they see no success,” Zakharova said.
Italian Election Observer Tours a Moscow Polling Station
One of the ways the ongoing 2024 Russian presidential election ensures transparency is by engaging international electoral observers who monitor the voting process.
Delegations of international observers from 36 countries and independent election experts have arrived in Russia. Dr. Marco Marsili, a researcher at Cà Foscari University of Venice and associate fellow at the Centre for Strategic Research (Cesran International) is among them. He holds research positions in major civil and military institutions in Portugal, the UK and Italy and was a public official and election observer for the OSCE. These days, he is an independent observer at the presidential elections taking place across the country on March 15-17.
In an exclusive video, he showed Sputnik how a typical polling station operates, including some of Russian unique technical features aimed at facilitating the casting of votes.
"We are here with a delegation of representatives, former parliamentaries and journalists and other experts from different countries like Georgia, France, Portugal and Italy, like me," he pointed out.
"This is the equipment for the electronic voting. So people scan their passport (through which they are identified) and they are allowed to vote," he pointed out.
Marsili also underlined the effectiveness of local election commissions and their commitment to assisting the voters.
"The voters are assisted promptly by personnel of the polling station and they receive all the information promptly in a way that they can vote in the proper way," he added.
LIVE UPDATES - Russians Head to the Polls to Elect Next President
Russia is holding its 2024 presidential election from March 15 to 17. The list of candidates running for the nation's highest office include Vladimir Putin (independent), Leonid Slutsky (LDPR), Nikolai Kharitonov (CPRF), and Vladislav Davankov (New People party).
Out of Russia's 145+ million citizens, over 110 million voters are eligible to vote at more than 100,000 polling stations, in addition, remote voting is also available.
Around 1 million election organizers are there to ensure that every single vote is secured and accounted for. Besides, the 2024 voting process also involves election observers and CCTV monitoring systems present at polling stations across the country.
This year’s election will also usher in such technical innovations as remote electronic voting (REV) and ballots with QR codes. According to the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC), these features will make the voting process more convenient and transparent.
On the first day of the presidential elections, over a million people took part in remote voting on Russia's federal online platform, according to the data of the monitoring portal.
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