MOSCOW, March  17, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Russians voted Sunday on the final day
of an election to extend Vladimir Putin's rule to three decades, as Ukraine
launched fatal attacks on the border and some voters crowded outside polling
stations in protest.

The three-day vote had already been marked by a surge in fatal Ukrainian
bombardments, incursions into Russian territory by pro-Kyiv sabotage groups and
vandalism at polling stations.

The Kremlin has cast the election as an opportunity for Russians to throw
their weight behind its full-scale military operation in Ukraine, where voting
is also being staged in Russian-controlled territories.

Ukraine has slammed the ballot as illegitimate and urged the international
community to reject Putin's inevitable new six-year mandate.

Supporters of the late Alexei Navalny -- Putin's most prominent rival, who
died in an Arctic prison last month -- urged voters to pour into polling
stations at noon and spoil their ballots for a "Midday Against Putin" protest.

His wife, Yulia Navalnaya was greeted by supporters with flowers and
applause when she joined a long queue of voters at the Russian embassy in
Berlin.

Some voters in Moscow appeared to heed Navalny's call, telling AFP they had
come to honour his memory and show their opposition in the only legal way
possible.

- 'Russia is not Putin' -

"I came to show that there are many of us, that we exist, that we are not
some insignificant minority," said 19-year-old student Artem Minasyan at a
polling station in central Moscow.

Leonid Volkov, a senior aide to the late opposition leader and who was
recently attacked in Lithuania where he fled political persecution in Russia,
thanked Russians for joining the noon protest.

"You saw each other. The whole world saw you. Russia is not Putin. Russia
is you," he wrote on social media.

But other voters expressed their support for Putin, saying that casting
their ballots for him was the only way to guarantee peace.
"What we want today, first of all, is peace," said 70-year-old pensioner
Lyubov Pyankova.

She was standing in front of a polling station in Putin's native city of
Saint Petersburg decorated with the red, white and blue 'V' logo -- a symbol
associated with the military offensive -- that Moscow has also used to promote
the vote.

Russia simply wanted "not to be disturbed, not to be told what to do",
Pyankova said.

- Tributes to Navalny -

At Navalny's grave in a Moscow cemetery, AFP reporters saw spoiled ballot
papers with his name written on them left on a pile of flowers.

Navalny, who galvanised mass protests, tried to run against Putin in the
2018 presidential election and launched a nationwide campaign but his candidacy
was rejected.

"We live in a country where we will go to jail if we speak our mind. So
when I come to moments like this and see a lot of people, I realise that we are
not alone," said 33-year-old Regina, holding an electronic cigarette.

There were repeated acts of protest in the first days of polling, with a
spate of arrests of Russians accused of pouring dye into ballot boxes or arson
attacks.

Any public dissent in Russia has been harshly punished since the start of
Moscow's offensive in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and there have been repeated
warnings from the authorities against election protests.

The OVD-Info police monitoring group announced that at least 74 people had
been detained across nearly 20 cities in Russia for protest actions linked to
the elections.

Meanwhile a surge in Ukrainian strikes on Russia continued unabated with
the Russian defence ministry reporting at least eight regions attacked
overnight and on Sunday morning.

- Fatal border attacks -

Three airports serving the capital briefly suspended operations following
the barrage, while a drone attack in the south sparked a fire at an oil
refinery.

In Russia's border city of Belgorod, multiple rounds of shelling killed two
-- a man and a 16-year-old girl -- and injured 12 more, the region's governor
said Sunday.

The governor has ordered the closure of shopping centres and schools in
Belgorod and the surrounding area for two days because of the strikes.

In the Russian-controlled territory of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, where
voting is also taking place, "kamikaze drones" set a polling station ablaze,
according to Moscow-installed authorities.

- 'Difficult period' -

The 71-year-old Putin, a former KGB agent, has been in power since the last
day of 1999 and is set to extend his grip over the country until at least 2030.

If he completes another Kremlin term, he will have stayed in power longer
than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.

He is running without any real opponents, having barred two candidates who
opposed the conflict in Ukraine.

In a pre-election address on Thursday, Putin said Russia was going through
a "difficult period".

"We need to continue to be united and self-confident," he said, describing
the election as a way for Russians to demonstrate "patriotic feelings".

The voting will wrap up in Kaliningrad, Russia's westernmost time zone, at
1800 GMT and an exit poll is expected to be announced shortly afterwards.

A concert on Red Square is being staged on Monday to mark 10 years since
Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula -- an event that is also
expected to serve as a victory celebration for Putin.

Ahead of the election, Russian state media have played up recent gains on
the front and portrayed the conflict as a fight for survival against attacks
from the West.