Russian Presidential Election: Ballot boxes vandalised on first day of voting

livemint.com:

Russian Presidential Election: The first day of voting in Russia's presidential election was marred by acts of vandalism at polling stations Friday, with at least nine arrests for pouring dye into ballot boxes and arson attacks. Vladimir Putin is set to secure another six years in the Kremlin after a three-day vote he has cast as a show of Russians' loyalty and support for his military assault on Ukraine, now in its third year.

Despite authorities warning that election-day protesters faced heavy punishment, at least nine were arrested for acts of vandalism at polling stations. In Moscow, video showed a woman setting a voting booth alight, filling a polling station with smoke, while another showed a woman pouring green dye into a ballot box.

Four others in the Russian regions of Voronezh, Karachay-Cherkessia and Rostov were detained for similar offences, while in Saint Petersburg and the Siberian region of Khanty-Mansi, women were detained for throwing Molotov cocktails at polling stations. A man was detained for lighting fireworks inside a polling station in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, while in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, an explosive device was detonated at a voting site.

Close to the border with Ukraine, a wave of Ukrainian drone and artillery strikes killed two people in the Belgorod region. Russia also launched one of its deadliest missile attacks of the conflict, killing at least 14 in a strike on the Black Sea port city of Odesa.

The strikes cap one the heaviest weeks of aerial attacks since the start of conflict and come after a week of cross-border raids by pro-Kyiv guerilla fighters, bringing Putin's two-year conflict into Russian territory once again. In power as president or prime minister since the