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Category: europe/rl

  • ‘Noon Against Putin’ Protesters Line Up For Russian Presidential Election

    Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones in time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest against a presidential election expected to virtually gift Vladimir Putin another six years of rule, making him the country’s longest-serving leader.

    Voting on March 17, the last day of the election held over a span of three days, took place with virtually no opposition to the long-serving incumbent.

    Russians not in favor of seeing Putin serve yet another term settled on showing up at polling places simultaneously at midday in large numbers, with some taking steps to spoil their ballots.

    Dozens of detentions were reported around the country as the vote took place under tight security, with Russia claiming that Ukraine, which it accused of launching a wave of air attacks that reached as far as Moscow, was attempting to disrupt voting.

    Putin’s greatest political rival, Aleksei Navalny, died a month before the polls in an Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances while serving sentences widely seen as politically motivated.

    Other serious opponents to Putin are either in jail or exile or were barred from running against him amid a heightened crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The situation left only three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties on the ballot — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.

    Despite Navalny’s death, his support for the idea of using the “Noon Against Putin” action to show the strength of the opposition lived on. The protest, a workaround of Russia’s restrictive laws on public assembly, called on people to assemble at polling stations precisely at noon.

    While it was difficult to determine voters’ reasoning for showing up to vote, many appeared to be answering the call to protest across the country as the deadline moved from Russia’s Far East toward Moscow, and from then to the western area of the country and parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.

    Videos and images posted on social media showed long lines of voters formed at noon in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.

    “The action has achieved its goals,” said Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, on YouTube. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”

    The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of long prison terms for those seen as disrupting the voting process.

    The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said that more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across the country on March 17.

    Twenty people in Kazan, in the Tatarstan region, were detained and later released, according to Current Time. One Ufa resident was reportedly detained for trying to stuff a photograph of Navalny into a ballot box. And in Moscow, a voter was detained after he appeared at a polling station wearing a T-shirt bearing Navalny’s name.

    In St. Petersburg, a woman was reportedly arrested after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, others were detained elsewhere in the country for spoiling ballots with green antiseptic into ballot boxes.

    Some activists were reportedly summoned to visit Federal Security Service branches precisely at 12 p.m., the same time the protest was expected.

    Outside Russia, Russian citizens also reportedly took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, including in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Phuket. In Moldova, voting at the Russian Consulate in Chisinau was reportedly delayed after an apparent fire-bombing.

    The Moscow prosecutor’s office earlier warned of criminal prosecution of those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”

    Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”

    But she warned that there are “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”

    The OVD-Info human rights group issued a statement labeled “How to Protect Yourself” ahead of the planned protest, also saying not to bring posters or banners and “do not demonstrate symbols that can attract the attention of the police, do not shout slogans. If you are asked why you came at noon, do not give the real reason.”

    Russian election officials, officially, said that as of late afternoon on March 17 more than 70 percent of the country’s 114 million eligible voters had cast ballots either in person or online.

    Observers widely predict that there was virtually no chance that Putin would not gain another term in office. A victory would hand him his fifth presidential term over a span of 24 years, interrupted only by his time spent as prime minister from 2008-2012.

    Over the first two days, some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids, with Russian officials and independent media reporting at least 28 cases.

    Incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd.

    Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.

    On March 16, independent media reported that Russian police had opened at least 28 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, a number expected to grow.

    Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, on March 16 denounced election protesters as “villains” and “traitors” who are aiding the country’s enemies, particularly Ukraine.

    “This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today,” he said on Telegram. “Criminal activists at polling stations should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years in a special regime [prison],” he added.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the full-scale war Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia leading up to the election, including strikes deep inside the country.

    On March 17, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region. Other drones were reportedly downed in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions neighboring the Moscow region, and in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov regions along Russia’s southwestern border with Ukraine.

    On March 16, Ukrainian forces shelled the border city of Belgorod and the village of Glotovo, killing at least three people and wounding eight others, Russian officials said.

    The same day, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery that belongs to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, some 850 kilometers southeast of Moscow, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. An attack on another refinery was thwarted, he added.

    Ukraine generally does not comment on attacks inside Russia, but Reuters quoted an unidentified Ukrainian source as saying that Kyiv’s SBU intelligence agency was behind strikes at three Samara region Rosneft refineries — Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky, which is inside the Samara city limits.

    “The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation that allows it to wage war in Ukraine,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.

    Russian authorities, who have accused Kyiv of launching assaults designed to disrupt voting, claimed that Ukraine on March 16 dropped a missile on a voting station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, although the report could not be verified.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ational Day Gathers Hungarians ‘Fed Up’ With Government


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • India Captures Bulgarian-Managed Ship From Pirates, Rescues Crew

    Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones in time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest against a presidential election expected to virtually gift Vladimir Putin another six years of rule, making him the country’s longest-serving leader.

    Voting on March 17, the last day of the election held over a span of three days, took place with virtually no opposition to the long-serving incumbent.

    Russians not in favor of seeing Putin serve yet another term settled on showing up at polling places simultaneously at midday in large numbers, with some taking steps to spoil their ballots.

    Dozens of detentions were reported around the country as the vote took place under tight security, with Russia claiming that Ukraine, which it accused of launching a wave of air attacks that reached as far as Moscow, was attempting to disrupt voting.

    Putin’s greatest political rival, Aleksei Navalny, died a month before the polls in an Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances while serving sentences widely seen as politically motivated.

    Other serious opponents to Putin are either in jail or exile or were barred from running against him amid a heightened crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The situation left only three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties on the ballot — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.

    Despite Navalny’s death, his support for the idea of using the “Noon Against Putin” action to show the strength of the opposition lived on. The protest, a workaround of Russia’s restrictive laws on public assembly, called on people to assemble at polling stations precisely at noon.

    While it was difficult to determine voters’ reasoning for showing up to vote, many appeared to be answering the call to protest across the country as the deadline moved from Russia’s Far East toward Moscow, and from then to the western area of the country and parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.

    Videos and images posted on social media showed long lines of voters formed at noon in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.

    “The action has achieved its goals,” said Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, on YouTube. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”

    The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of long prison terms for those seen as disrupting the voting process.

    The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said that more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across the country on March 17.

    Twenty people in Kazan, in the Tatarstan region, were detained and later released, according to Current Time. One Ufa resident was reportedly detained for trying to stuff a photograph of Navalny into a ballot box. And in Moscow, a voter was detained after he appeared at a polling station wearing a T-shirt bearing Navalny’s name.

    In St. Petersburg, a woman was reportedly arrested after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, others were detained elsewhere in the country for spoiling ballots with green antiseptic into ballot boxes.

    Some activists were reportedly summoned to visit Federal Security Service branches precisely at 12 p.m., the same time the protest was expected.

    Outside Russia, Russian citizens also reportedly took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, including in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Phuket. In Moldova, voting at the Russian Consulate in Chisinau was reportedly delayed after an apparent fire-bombing.

    The Moscow prosecutor’s office earlier warned of criminal prosecution of those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”

    Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”

    But she warned that there are “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”

    The OVD-Info human rights group issued a statement labeled “How to Protect Yourself” ahead of the planned protest, also saying not to bring posters or banners and “do not demonstrate symbols that can attract the attention of the police, do not shout slogans. If you are asked why you came at noon, do not give the real reason.”

    Russian election officials, officially, said that as of late afternoon on March 17 more than 70 percent of the country’s 114 million eligible voters had cast ballots either in person or online.

    Observers widely predict that there was virtually no chance that Putin would not gain another term in office. A victory would hand him his fifth presidential term over a span of 24 years, interrupted only by his time spent as prime minister from 2008-2012.

    Over the first two days, some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids, with Russian officials and independent media reporting at least 28 cases.

    Incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd.

    Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.

    On March 16, independent media reported that Russian police had opened at least 28 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, a number expected to grow.

    Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, on March 16 denounced election protesters as “villains” and “traitors” who are aiding the country’s enemies, particularly Ukraine.

    “This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today,” he said on Telegram. “Criminal activists at polling stations should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years in a special regime [prison],” he added.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the full-scale war Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia leading up to the election, including strikes deep inside the country.

    On March 17, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region. Other drones were reportedly downed in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions neighboring the Moscow region, and in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov regions along Russia’s southwestern border with Ukraine.

    On March 16, Ukrainian forces shelled the border city of Belgorod and the village of Glotovo, killing at least three people and wounding eight others, Russian officials said.

    The same day, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery that belongs to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, some 850 kilometers southeast of Moscow, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. An attack on another refinery was thwarted, he added.

    Ukraine generally does not comment on attacks inside Russia, but Reuters quoted an unidentified Ukrainian source as saying that Kyiv’s SBU intelligence agency was behind strikes at three Samara region Rosneft refineries — Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky, which is inside the Samara city limits.

    “The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation that allows it to wage war in Ukraine,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.

    Russian authorities, who have accused Kyiv of launching assaults designed to disrupt voting, claimed that Ukraine on March 16 dropped a missile on a voting station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, although the report could not be verified.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iran’s Medical Council Warns Of Doctor Shortage Due To Emigration

    The Iranian government “bears responsibility” for the physical violence that led to the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman who died in police custody in 2022, and for the brutal crackdown on largely peaceful street protests that followed, a report by a United Nations fact-finding mission says.

    The report, issued on March 8 by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran, said the mission “has established the existence of evidence of trauma to Ms. Amini’s body, inflicted while in the custody of the morality police.”

    It said the mission found the “physical violence in custody led to Ms. Amini’s unlawful death…. On that basis, the state bears responsibility for her unlawful death.”

    Amini was arrested in Tehran on September 13, 2022, while visiting the Iranian capital with her family. She was detained by Iran’s so-called “morality police” for allegedly improperly wearing her hijab, or hair-covering head scarf. Within hours of her detention, she was hospitalized in a coma and died on September 16.

    Her family has denied that Amini suffered from a preexisting health condition that may have contributed to her death, as claimed by the Iranian authorities, and her father has cited eyewitnesses as saying she was beaten while en route to a detention facility.

    The fact-finding report said the action “emphasizes the arbitrary character of Ms. Amini’s arrest and detention, which were based on laws and policies governing the mandatory hijab, which fundamentally discriminate against women and girls and are not permissible under international human rights law.”

    “Those laws and policies violate the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, and the autonomy of women and girls. Ms. Amini’s arrest and detention, preceding her death in custody, constituted a violation of her right to liberty of person,” it said.

    The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran hailed the findings and said they represented clear signs of “crimes against humanity.”

    “The Islamic republic’s violent repression of peaceful dissent and severe discrimination against women and girls in Iran has been confirmed as constituting nothing short of crimes against humanity,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the center.

    “The government’s brutal crackdown on the Women, Life, Freedom protests has seen a litany of atrocities that include extrajudicial killings, torture, and rape. These violations disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in society, women, children, and minority groups,” he added.

    The report also said the Iranian government failed to “comply with its duty” to investigate the woman’s death promptly.

    “Most notably, judicial harassment and intimidation were aimed at her family in order to silence them and preempt them from seeking legal redress. Some family members faced arbitrary arrest, while the family’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbaht, and three journalists, Niloofar Hamedi, Elahe Mohammadi, and Nazila Maroufian, who reported on Ms. Amini’s death were arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to imprisonment,” it added.

    Amini’s death sparked mass protests, beginning in her home town of Saghez, then spreading around the country, and ultimately posed one of the biggest threats to Iran’s clerical establishment since the foundation of the Islamic republic in 1979. At least 500 people were reported killed in the government’s crackdown on demonstrators.

    The UN report said “violations and crimes” under international law committed in the context of the Women, Life, Freedom protests include “extrajudicial and unlawful killings and murder, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and gender persecution.

    “The violent repression of peaceful protests and pervasive institutional discrimination against women and girls has led to serious human rights violations by the government of Iran, many amounting to crimes against humanity,” the report said.

    The UN mission acknowledged that some state security forces were killed and injured during the demonstrations, but said it found that the majority of protests were peaceful.

    The mission stems from the UN Human Rights Council’s mandate to the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran on November 24, 2022, to investigate alleged human rights violations in Iran related to the protests that followed Amini’s death.


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Trump Son-In-Law Kushner Plans Luxury Projects In Serbia, Albania

    Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones in time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest against a presidential election expected to virtually gift Vladimir Putin another six years of rule, making him the country’s longest-serving leader.

    Voting on March 17, the last day of the election held over a span of three days, took place with virtually no opposition to the long-serving incumbent.

    Russians not in favor of seeing Putin serve yet another term settled on showing up at polling places simultaneously at midday in large numbers, with some taking steps to spoil their ballots.

    Dozens of detentions were reported around the country as the vote took place under tight security, with Russia claiming that Ukraine, which it accused of launching a wave of air attacks that reached as far as Moscow, was attempting to disrupt voting.

    Putin’s greatest political rival, Aleksei Navalny, died a month before the polls in an Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances while serving sentences widely seen as politically motivated.

    Other serious opponents to Putin are either in jail or exile or were barred from running against him amid a heightened crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The situation left only three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties on the ballot — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.

    Despite Navalny’s death, his support for the idea of using the “Noon Against Putin” action to show the strength of the opposition lived on. The protest, a workaround of Russia’s restrictive laws on public assembly, called on people to assemble at polling stations precisely at noon.

    While it was difficult to determine voters’ reasoning for showing up to vote, many appeared to be answering the call to protest across the country as the deadline moved from Russia’s Far East toward Moscow, and from then to the western area of the country and parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.

    Videos and images posted on social media showed long lines of voters formed at noon in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.

    “The action has achieved its goals,” said Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, on YouTube. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”

    The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of long prison terms for those seen as disrupting the voting process.

    The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said that more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across the country on March 17.

    Twenty people in Kazan, in the Tatarstan region, were detained and later released, according to Current Time. One Ufa resident was reportedly detained for trying to stuff a photograph of Navalny into a ballot box. And in Moscow, a voter was detained after he appeared at a polling station wearing a T-shirt bearing Navalny’s name.

    In St. Petersburg, a woman was reportedly arrested after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, others were detained elsewhere in the country for spoiling ballots with green antiseptic into ballot boxes.

    Some activists were reportedly summoned to visit Federal Security Service branches precisely at 12 p.m., the same time the protest was expected.

    Outside Russia, Russian citizens also reportedly took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, including in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Phuket. In Moldova, voting at the Russian Consulate in Chisinau was reportedly delayed after an apparent fire-bombing.

    The Moscow prosecutor’s office earlier warned of criminal prosecution of those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”

    Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”

    But she warned that there are “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”

    The OVD-Info human rights group issued a statement labeled “How to Protect Yourself” ahead of the planned protest, also saying not to bring posters or banners and “do not demonstrate symbols that can attract the attention of the police, do not shout slogans. If you are asked why you came at noon, do not give the real reason.”

    Russian election officials, officially, said that as of late afternoon on March 17 more than 70 percent of the country’s 114 million eligible voters had cast ballots either in person or online.

    Observers widely predict that there was virtually no chance that Putin would not gain another term in office. A victory would hand him his fifth presidential term over a span of 24 years, interrupted only by his time spent as prime minister from 2008-2012.

    Over the first two days, some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids, with Russian officials and independent media reporting at least 28 cases.

    Incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd.

    Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.

    On March 16, independent media reported that Russian police had opened at least 28 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, a number expected to grow.

    Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, on March 16 denounced election protesters as “villains” and “traitors” who are aiding the country’s enemies, particularly Ukraine.

    “This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today,” he said on Telegram. “Criminal activists at polling stations should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years in a special regime [prison],” he added.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the full-scale war Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia leading up to the election, including strikes deep inside the country.

    On March 17, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region. Other drones were reportedly downed in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions neighboring the Moscow region, and in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov regions along Russia’s southwestern border with Ukraine.

    On March 16, Ukrainian forces shelled the border city of Belgorod and the village of Glotovo, killing at least three people and wounding eight others, Russian officials said.

    The same day, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery that belongs to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, some 850 kilometers southeast of Moscow, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. An attack on another refinery was thwarted, he added.

    Ukraine generally does not comment on attacks inside Russia, but Reuters quoted an unidentified Ukrainian source as saying that Kyiv’s SBU intelligence agency was behind strikes at three Samara region Rosneft refineries — Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky, which is inside the Samara city limits.

    “The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation that allows it to wage war in Ukraine,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.

    Russian authorities, who have accused Kyiv of launching assaults designed to disrupt voting, claimed that Ukraine on March 16 dropped a missile on a voting station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, although the report could not be verified.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iranian Religious Scholar, Women’s Rights Activist Arrested, Husband Says

    The Iranian government “bears responsibility” for the physical violence that led to the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman who died in police custody in 2022, and for the brutal crackdown on largely peaceful street protests that followed, a report by a United Nations fact-finding mission says.

    The report, issued on March 8 by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran, said the mission “has established the existence of evidence of trauma to Ms. Amini’s body, inflicted while in the custody of the morality police.”

    It said the mission found the “physical violence in custody led to Ms. Amini’s unlawful death…. On that basis, the state bears responsibility for her unlawful death.”

    Amini was arrested in Tehran on September 13, 2022, while visiting the Iranian capital with her family. She was detained by Iran’s so-called “morality police” for allegedly improperly wearing her hijab, or hair-covering head scarf. Within hours of her detention, she was hospitalized in a coma and died on September 16.

    Her family has denied that Amini suffered from a preexisting health condition that may have contributed to her death, as claimed by the Iranian authorities, and her father has cited eyewitnesses as saying she was beaten while en route to a detention facility.

    The fact-finding report said the action “emphasizes the arbitrary character of Ms. Amini’s arrest and detention, which were based on laws and policies governing the mandatory hijab, which fundamentally discriminate against women and girls and are not permissible under international human rights law.”

    “Those laws and policies violate the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, and the autonomy of women and girls. Ms. Amini’s arrest and detention, preceding her death in custody, constituted a violation of her right to liberty of person,” it said.

    The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran hailed the findings and said they represented clear signs of “crimes against humanity.”

    “The Islamic republic’s violent repression of peaceful dissent and severe discrimination against women and girls in Iran has been confirmed as constituting nothing short of crimes against humanity,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the center.

    “The government’s brutal crackdown on the Women, Life, Freedom protests has seen a litany of atrocities that include extrajudicial killings, torture, and rape. These violations disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in society, women, children, and minority groups,” he added.

    The report also said the Iranian government failed to “comply with its duty” to investigate the woman’s death promptly.

    “Most notably, judicial harassment and intimidation were aimed at her family in order to silence them and preempt them from seeking legal redress. Some family members faced arbitrary arrest, while the family’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbaht, and three journalists, Niloofar Hamedi, Elahe Mohammadi, and Nazila Maroufian, who reported on Ms. Amini’s death were arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to imprisonment,” it added.

    Amini’s death sparked mass protests, beginning in her home town of Saghez, then spreading around the country, and ultimately posed one of the biggest threats to Iran’s clerical establishment since the foundation of the Islamic republic in 1979. At least 500 people were reported killed in the government’s crackdown on demonstrators.

    The UN report said “violations and crimes” under international law committed in the context of the Women, Life, Freedom protests include “extrajudicial and unlawful killings and murder, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and gender persecution.

    “The violent repression of peaceful protests and pervasive institutional discrimination against women and girls has led to serious human rights violations by the government of Iran, many amounting to crimes against humanity,” the report said.

    The UN mission acknowledged that some state security forces were killed and injured during the demonstrations, but said it found that the majority of protests were peaceful.

    The mission stems from the UN Human Rights Council’s mandate to the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran on November 24, 2022, to investigate alleged human rights violations in Iran related to the protests that followed Amini’s death.


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Clearing Kyrgyzstan’s Most Dangerous Road


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Several Troops Killed In Suicide Attack On Pakistan Military Post

    Russians have begun a second day of voting in a presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.

    By midday of March 16, Russian police had opened at least 15 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, independent media reported.

    More than one-third of Russia’s 110 million eligible voters cast ballots in person and online on the first day of the country’s three-day presidential election, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) said after polls closed on March 15 in the country’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

    Balloting started up again on March 16 in the Far East of Russia and will continue in all 11 time zones of the country, as well as the occupied Crimean Peninsula and four other Ukrainian regions that Moscow partially controls and baselessly claims are part of Russia.

    Putin is poised to win and extend his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched, but has been ratcheted up since.

    Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule on March 15, vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids.

    Among them was a 43-year-old member of the local election commission in the Lenin district of Izhevsk city, the Interior Ministry said on March 16.

    The official was detained by police after she attempted to spill zelyonka into a touchscreen voting machine, the ministry said. Police didn’t release the woman’s name, but said she was a member of the Communist Party.

    Similar incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd, while at least four voters burned their ballots in polling stations.

    In Moscow, police arrested a woman who burned her ballot inside a voting booth in the city’s polling station N1527 on March 15, Russian news agencies reported, citing election officials in the Russian capital.

    The news outlet Sota reported that that woman burned a ballot with “Bring back my husband” handwritten on it, and posted video purportedly showing the incident.

    There also was one report of a firebombing at a polling station in Moscow, while In Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, a 21-year-old woman was detained after she threw a Molotov cocktail at an entrance of a local school that houses two polling stations.

    “It’s the first time I’ve see something like this — or at least [such attacks] have not been so spectacular before,” Roman Udot, an election analyst and a board member of the independent election monitor Golos, told RFE/RL.

    “The state launched a war against [the election process] and this is the very striking harvest it gets in return. People resent these elections as a result and have started using them for completely different purposes [than voting].”

    Russia’s ruling United Russia party claimed on March 16 that it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack — a form of cyberattack that snarls internet use — against its online presence. The party said it had suspended nonessential services to repel the attack.

    Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to toughen punishments for those who try to disrupt elections “by arson and other dangerous means.” Under the current law, such actions are punishable by five years in prison, and the lawmakers proposed to extend it to up to eight years in prison.

    No Serious Challengers

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule.

    He called on voters to cast their ballot at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action “Noon Against Putin.” HIs wife and others have since continued to call for the protest to be carried out.

    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the TsIK because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter, on March 15.

    “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    Ukraine and many Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in regions it occupies parts of, calling the move illegal.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to the criticism on March 15, saying he “condemns the efforts of the Russian Federation to hold its presidential elections in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation.”

    His spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, added that the “attempted illegal annexation” of those regions has “no validity” under international law.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    With reporting by Reuters and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ukraine Strikes Russian Oil Refineries, Shells Border City

    Russians have begun a second day of voting in a presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.

    By midday of March 16, Russian police had opened at least 15 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, independent media reported.

    More than one-third of Russia’s 110 million eligible voters cast ballots in person and online on the first day of the country’s three-day presidential election, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) said after polls closed on March 15 in the country’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

    Balloting started up again on March 16 in the Far East of Russia and will continue in all 11 time zones of the country, as well as the occupied Crimean Peninsula and four other Ukrainian regions that Moscow partially controls and baselessly claims are part of Russia.

    Putin is poised to win and extend his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched, but has been ratcheted up since.

    Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule on March 15, vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids.

    Among them was a 43-year-old member of the local election commission in the Lenin district of Izhevsk city, the Interior Ministry said on March 16.

    The official was detained by police after she attempted to spill zelyonka into a touchscreen voting machine, the ministry said. Police didn’t release the woman’s name, but said she was a member of the Communist Party.

    Similar incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd, while at least four voters burned their ballots in polling stations.

    In Moscow, police arrested a woman who burned her ballot inside a voting booth in the city’s polling station N1527 on March 15, Russian news agencies reported, citing election officials in the Russian capital.

    The news outlet Sota reported that that woman burned a ballot with “Bring back my husband” handwritten on it, and posted video purportedly showing the incident.

    There also was one report of a firebombing at a polling station in Moscow, while In Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, a 21-year-old woman was detained after she threw a Molotov cocktail at an entrance of a local school that houses two polling stations.

    “It’s the first time I’ve see something like this — or at least [such attacks] have not been so spectacular before,” Roman Udot, an election analyst and a board member of the independent election monitor Golos, told RFE/RL.

    “The state launched a war against [the election process] and this is the very striking harvest it gets in return. People resent these elections as a result and have started using them for completely different purposes [than voting].”

    Russia’s ruling United Russia party claimed on March 16 that it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack — a form of cyberattack that snarls internet use — against its online presence. The party said it had suspended nonessential services to repel the attack.

    Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to toughen punishments for those who try to disrupt elections “by arson and other dangerous means.” Under the current law, such actions are punishable by five years in prison, and the lawmakers proposed to extend it to up to eight years in prison.

    No Serious Challengers

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule.

    He called on voters to cast their ballot at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action “Noon Against Putin.” HIs wife and others have since continued to call for the protest to be carried out.

    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the TsIK because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter, on March 15.

    “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    Ukraine and many Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in regions it occupies parts of, calling the move illegal.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to the criticism on March 15, saying he “condemns the efforts of the Russian Federation to hold its presidential elections in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation.”

    His spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, added that the “attempted illegal annexation” of those regions has “no validity” under international law.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    With reporting by Reuters and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Police Investigate At Least 15 Cases Of ‘Vandalism In Polling Stations’ As Voting Resumes

    Russians have begun a second day of voting in a presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.

    By midday of March 16, Russian police had opened at least 15 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, independent media reported.

    More than one-third of Russia’s 110 million eligible voters cast ballots in person and online on the first day of the country’s three-day presidential election, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) said after polls closed on March 15 in the country’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

    Balloting started up again on March 16 in the Far East of Russia and will continue in all 11 time zones of the country, as well as the occupied Crimean Peninsula and four other Ukrainian regions that Moscow partially controls and baselessly claims are part of Russia.

    Putin is poised to win and extend his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched, but has been ratcheted up since.

    Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule on March 15, vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids.

    Among them was a 43-year-old member of the local election commission in the Lenin district of Izhevsk city, the Interior Ministry said on March 16.

    The official was detained by police after she attempted to spill zelyonka into a touchscreen voting machine, the ministry said. Police didn’t release the woman’s name, but said she was a member of the Communist Party.

    Similar incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd, while at least four voters burned their ballots in polling stations.

    In Moscow, police arrested a woman who burned her ballot inside a voting booth in the city’s polling station N1527 on March 15, Russian news agencies reported, citing election officials in the Russian capital.

    The news outlet Sota reported that that woman burned a ballot with “Bring back my husband” handwritten on it, and posted video purportedly showing the incident.

    There also was one report of a firebombing at a polling station in Moscow, while In Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, a 21-year-old woman was detained after she threw a Molotov cocktail at an entrance of a local school that houses two polling stations.

    “It’s the first time I’ve see something like this — or at least [such attacks] have not been so spectacular before,” Roman Udot, an election analyst and a board member of the independent election monitor Golos, told RFE/RL.

    “The state launched a war against [the election process] and this is the very striking harvest it gets in return. People resent these elections as a result and have started using them for completely different purposes [than voting].”

    Russia’s ruling United Russia party claimed on March 16 that it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack — a form of cyberattack that snarls internet use — against its online presence. The party said it had suspended nonessential services to repel the attack.

    Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to toughen punishments for those who try to disrupt elections “by arson and other dangerous means.” Under the current law, such actions are punishable by five years in prison, and the lawmakers proposed to extend it to up to eight years in prison.

    No Serious Challengers

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule.

    He called on voters to cast their ballot at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action “Noon Against Putin.” HIs wife and others have since continued to call for the protest to be carried out.

    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the TsIK because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter, on March 15.

    “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    Ukraine and many Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in regions it occupies parts of, calling the move illegal.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to the criticism on March 15, saying he “condemns the efforts of the Russian Federation to hold its presidential elections in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation.”

    His spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, added that the “attempted illegal annexation” of those regions has “no validity” under international law.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    With reporting by Reuters and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Bulgarian Political Bloc Condemns Verbal Attack On Jewish Member

    Russians have begun a second day of voting in a presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.

    By midday of March 16, Russian police had opened at least 15 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, independent media reported.

    More than one-third of Russia’s 110 million eligible voters cast ballots in person and online on the first day of the country’s three-day presidential election, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) said after polls closed on March 15 in the country’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

    Balloting started up again on March 16 in the Far East of Russia and will continue in all 11 time zones of the country, as well as the occupied Crimean Peninsula and four other Ukrainian regions that Moscow partially controls and baselessly claims are part of Russia.

    Putin is poised to win and extend his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched, but has been ratcheted up since.

    Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule on March 15, vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids.

    Among them was a 43-year-old member of the local election commission in the Lenin district of Izhevsk city, the Interior Ministry said on March 16.

    The official was detained by police after she attempted to spill zelyonka into a touchscreen voting machine, the ministry said. Police didn’t release the woman’s name, but said she was a member of the Communist Party.

    Similar incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd, while at least four voters burned their ballots in polling stations.

    In Moscow, police arrested a woman who burned her ballot inside a voting booth in the city’s polling station N1527 on March 15, Russian news agencies reported, citing election officials in the Russian capital.

    The news outlet Sota reported that that woman burned a ballot with “Bring back my husband” handwritten on it, and posted video purportedly showing the incident.

    There also was one report of a firebombing at a polling station in Moscow, while In Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, a 21-year-old woman was detained after she threw a Molotov cocktail at an entrance of a local school that houses two polling stations.

    “It’s the first time I’ve see something like this — or at least [such attacks] have not been so spectacular before,” Roman Udot, an election analyst and a board member of the independent election monitor Golos, told RFE/RL.

    “The state launched a war against [the election process] and this is the very striking harvest it gets in return. People resent these elections as a result and have started using them for completely different purposes [than voting].”

    Russia’s ruling United Russia party claimed on March 16 that it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack — a form of cyberattack that snarls internet use — against its online presence. The party said it had suspended nonessential services to repel the attack.

    Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to toughen punishments for those who try to disrupt elections “by arson and other dangerous means.” Under the current law, such actions are punishable by five years in prison, and the lawmakers proposed to extend it to up to eight years in prison.

    No Serious Challengers

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule.

    He called on voters to cast their ballot at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action “Noon Against Putin.” HIs wife and others have since continued to call for the protest to be carried out.

    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the TsIK because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter, on March 15.

    “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    Ukraine and many Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in regions it occupies parts of, calling the move illegal.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to the criticism on March 15, saying he “condemns the efforts of the Russian Federation to hold its presidential elections in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation.”

    His spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, added that the “attempted illegal annexation” of those regions has “no validity” under international law.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    With reporting by Reuters and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Europe To Use Frozen Russian Profits To Buy Arms For Ukraine

    Russians have begun a second day of voting in a presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.

    By midday of March 16, Russian police had opened at least 15 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, independent media reported.

    More than one-third of Russia’s 110 million eligible voters cast ballots in person and online on the first day of the country’s three-day presidential election, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) said after polls closed on March 15 in the country’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

    Balloting started up again on March 16 in the Far East of Russia and will continue in all 11 time zones of the country, as well as the occupied Crimean Peninsula and four other Ukrainian regions that Moscow partially controls and baselessly claims are part of Russia.

    Putin is poised to win and extend his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched, but has been ratcheted up since.

    Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule on March 15, vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids.

    Among them was a 43-year-old member of the local election commission in the Lenin district of Izhevsk city, the Interior Ministry said on March 16.

    The official was detained by police after she attempted to spill zelyonka into a touchscreen voting machine, the ministry said. Police didn’t release the woman’s name, but said she was a member of the Communist Party.

    Similar incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd, while at least four voters burned their ballots in polling stations.

    In Moscow, police arrested a woman who burned her ballot inside a voting booth in the city’s polling station N1527 on March 15, Russian news agencies reported, citing election officials in the Russian capital.

    The news outlet Sota reported that that woman burned a ballot with “Bring back my husband” handwritten on it, and posted video purportedly showing the incident.

    There also was one report of a firebombing at a polling station in Moscow, while In Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, a 21-year-old woman was detained after she threw a Molotov cocktail at an entrance of a local school that houses two polling stations.

    “It’s the first time I’ve see something like this — or at least [such attacks] have not been so spectacular before,” Roman Udot, an election analyst and a board member of the independent election monitor Golos, told RFE/RL.

    “The state launched a war against [the election process] and this is the very striking harvest it gets in return. People resent these elections as a result and have started using them for completely different purposes [than voting].”

    Russia’s ruling United Russia party claimed on March 16 that it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack — a form of cyberattack that snarls internet use — against its online presence. The party said it had suspended nonessential services to repel the attack.

    Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to toughen punishments for those who try to disrupt elections “by arson and other dangerous means.” Under the current law, such actions are punishable by five years in prison, and the lawmakers proposed to extend it to up to eight years in prison.

    No Serious Challengers

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule.

    He called on voters to cast their ballot at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action “Noon Against Putin.” HIs wife and others have since continued to call for the protest to be carried out.

    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the TsIK because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter, on March 15.

    “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    Ukraine and many Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in regions it occupies parts of, calling the move illegal.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to the criticism on March 15, saying he “condemns the efforts of the Russian Federation to hold its presidential elections in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation.”

    His spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, added that the “attempted illegal annexation” of those regions has “no validity” under international law.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    With reporting by Reuters and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Green Dye And Fire Spoil Ballot Boxes In Incidents Across Russia


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Orban Calls For Hungarians To ‘Occupy Brussels’ In Upcoming Elections

    Russians have begun a second day of voting in a presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.

    By midday of March 16, Russian police had opened at least 15 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, independent media reported.

    More than one-third of Russia’s 110 million eligible voters cast ballots in person and online on the first day of the country’s three-day presidential election, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) said after polls closed on March 15 in the country’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

    Balloting started up again on March 16 in the Far East of Russia and will continue in all 11 time zones of the country, as well as the occupied Crimean Peninsula and four other Ukrainian regions that Moscow partially controls and baselessly claims are part of Russia.

    Putin is poised to win and extend his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched, but has been ratcheted up since.

    Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule on March 15, vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids.

    Among them was a 43-year-old member of the local election commission in the Lenin district of Izhevsk city, the Interior Ministry said on March 16.

    The official was detained by police after she attempted to spill zelyonka into a touchscreen voting machine, the ministry said. Police didn’t release the woman’s name, but said she was a member of the Communist Party.

    Similar incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd, while at least four voters burned their ballots in polling stations.

    In Moscow, police arrested a woman who burned her ballot inside a voting booth in the city’s polling station N1527 on March 15, Russian news agencies reported, citing election officials in the Russian capital.

    The news outlet Sota reported that that woman burned a ballot with “Bring back my husband” handwritten on it, and posted video purportedly showing the incident.

    There also was one report of a firebombing at a polling station in Moscow, while In Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, a 21-year-old woman was detained after she threw a Molotov cocktail at an entrance of a local school that houses two polling stations.

    “It’s the first time I’ve see something like this — or at least [such attacks] have not been so spectacular before,” Roman Udot, an election analyst and a board member of the independent election monitor Golos, told RFE/RL.

    “The state launched a war against [the election process] and this is the very striking harvest it gets in return. People resent these elections as a result and have started using them for completely different purposes [than voting].”

    Russia’s ruling United Russia party claimed on March 16 that it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack — a form of cyberattack that snarls internet use — against its online presence. The party said it had suspended nonessential services to repel the attack.

    Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to toughen punishments for those who try to disrupt elections “by arson and other dangerous means.” Under the current law, such actions are punishable by five years in prison, and the lawmakers proposed to extend it to up to eight years in prison.

    No Serious Challengers

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule.

    He called on voters to cast their ballot at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action “Noon Against Putin.” HIs wife and others have since continued to call for the protest to be carried out.

    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the TsIK because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter, on March 15.

    “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    Ukraine and many Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in regions it occupies parts of, calling the move illegal.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to the criticism on March 15, saying he “condemns the efforts of the Russian Federation to hold its presidential elections in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation.”

    His spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, added that the “attempted illegal annexation” of those regions has “no validity” under international law.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    With reporting by Reuters and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Activist Says Kyrgyz President Accepted $3 Million From Tycoon In 2020

    Russians have begun a second day of voting in a presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.

    By midday of March 16, Russian police had opened at least 15 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, independent media reported.

    More than one-third of Russia’s 110 million eligible voters cast ballots in person and online on the first day of the country’s three-day presidential election, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) said after polls closed on March 15 in the country’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

    Balloting started up again on March 16 in the Far East of Russia and will continue in all 11 time zones of the country, as well as the occupied Crimean Peninsula and four other Ukrainian regions that Moscow partially controls and baselessly claims are part of Russia.

    Putin is poised to win and extend his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched, but has been ratcheted up since.

    Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule on March 15, vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids.

    Among them was a 43-year-old member of the local election commission in the Lenin district of Izhevsk city, the Interior Ministry said on March 16.

    The official was detained by police after she attempted to spill zelyonka into a touchscreen voting machine, the ministry said. Police didn’t release the woman’s name, but said she was a member of the Communist Party.

    Similar incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd, while at least four voters burned their ballots in polling stations.

    In Moscow, police arrested a woman who burned her ballot inside a voting booth in the city’s polling station N1527 on March 15, Russian news agencies reported, citing election officials in the Russian capital.

    The news outlet Sota reported that that woman burned a ballot with “Bring back my husband” handwritten on it, and posted video purportedly showing the incident.

    There also was one report of a firebombing at a polling station in Moscow, while In Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, a 21-year-old woman was detained after she threw a Molotov cocktail at an entrance of a local school that houses two polling stations.

    “It’s the first time I’ve see something like this — or at least [such attacks] have not been so spectacular before,” Roman Udot, an election analyst and a board member of the independent election monitor Golos, told RFE/RL.

    “The state launched a war against [the election process] and this is the very striking harvest it gets in return. People resent these elections as a result and have started using them for completely different purposes [than voting].”

    Russia’s ruling United Russia party claimed on March 16 that it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack — a form of cyberattack that snarls internet use — against its online presence. The party said it had suspended nonessential services to repel the attack.

    Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to toughen punishments for those who try to disrupt elections “by arson and other dangerous means.” Under the current law, such actions are punishable by five years in prison, and the lawmakers proposed to extend it to up to eight years in prison.

    No Serious Challengers

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule.

    He called on voters to cast their ballot at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action “Noon Against Putin.” HIs wife and others have since continued to call for the protest to be carried out.

    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the TsIK because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter, on March 15.

    “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    Ukraine and many Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in regions it occupies parts of, calling the move illegal.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to the criticism on March 15, saying he “condemns the efforts of the Russian Federation to hold its presidential elections in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation.”

    His spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, added that the “attempted illegal annexation” of those regions has “no validity” under international law.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    With reporting by Reuters and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Navalnaya, Russian Opposition Figures Call For Election Protests Against Putin


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Envoy Frustrated With Kurti’s Refusal To Reverse Serbian Dinar Ban

    Russians have begun a second day of voting in a presidential election that has seen sporadic protests as some, defying threats of stiff prison sentences, showed their anger over a process set up to hand Vladimir Putin another six years of rule.

    By midday of March 16, Russian police had opened at least 15 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, independent media reported.

    More than one-third of Russia’s 110 million eligible voters cast ballots in person and online on the first day of the country’s three-day presidential election, the Central Election Commission (TsIK) said after polls closed on March 15 in the country’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

    Balloting started up again on March 16 in the Far East of Russia and will continue in all 11 time zones of the country, as well as the occupied Crimean Peninsula and four other Ukrainian regions that Moscow partially controls and baselessly claims are part of Russia.

    Putin is poised to win and extend his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched, but has been ratcheted up since.

    Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule on March 15, vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids.

    Among them was a 43-year-old member of the local election commission in the Lenin district of Izhevsk city, the Interior Ministry said on March 16.

    The official was detained by police after she attempted to spill zelyonka into a touchscreen voting machine, the ministry said. Police didn’t release the woman’s name, but said she was a member of the Communist Party.

    Similar incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd, while at least four voters burned their ballots in polling stations.

    In Moscow, police arrested a woman who burned her ballot inside a voting booth in the city’s polling station N1527 on March 15, Russian news agencies reported, citing election officials in the Russian capital.

    The news outlet Sota reported that that woman burned a ballot with “Bring back my husband” handwritten on it, and posted video purportedly showing the incident.

    There also was one report of a firebombing at a polling station in Moscow, while In Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, a 21-year-old woman was detained after she threw a Molotov cocktail at an entrance of a local school that houses two polling stations.

    “It’s the first time I’ve see something like this — or at least [such attacks] have not been so spectacular before,” Roman Udot, an election analyst and a board member of the independent election monitor Golos, told RFE/RL.

    “The state launched a war against [the election process] and this is the very striking harvest it gets in return. People resent these elections as a result and have started using them for completely different purposes [than voting].”

    Russia’s ruling United Russia party claimed on March 16 that it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack — a form of cyberattack that snarls internet use — against its online presence. The party said it had suspended nonessential services to repel the attack.

    Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to toughen punishments for those who try to disrupt elections “by arson and other dangerous means.” Under the current law, such actions are punishable by five years in prison, and the lawmakers proposed to extend it to up to eight years in prison.

    No Serious Challengers

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule.

    He called on voters to cast their ballot at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action “Noon Against Putin.” HIs wife and others have since continued to call for the protest to be carried out.

    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the TsIK because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter, on March 15.

    “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    Ukraine and many Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in regions it occupies parts of, calling the move illegal.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice to the criticism on March 15, saying he “condemns the efforts of the Russian Federation to hold its presidential elections in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation.”

    His spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, added that the “attempted illegal annexation” of those regions has “no validity” under international law.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    With reporting by Reuters and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Putin’s Addiction To Power? Psychiatrists Explain His State Of Mind


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • In The Balkans, Protesters Fined Over Defacing War Criminal Memorials


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Two Dead In Russian Strikes On Ukrainian Regions

    Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The vote, which is not expected to be free and fair, is also the first major election to take place in Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    The first polling station opened in Russia’s Far East. As the day progresses, voters will cast their ballots at nearly 100,000 polling stations across the country’s 11 time zones, as well as in regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed.

    By around 10 a.m. Moscow time, TsIK said 2.89 percent of the 110 million eligible voters had already cast their ballots. That figure includes those who cast early ballots, TsIK Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said.

    Some people trying to vote online reported problems, but officials said those being told they were in an electronic queue “just need to wait a little or return to voting later.”

    There were reports that public sector employees were being urged to vote early on March 15, a directive Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of the Golos voters’ rights movement, said was aimed at having workers vote “under the watchful eyes of their bosses.”

    Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in those Ukrainian regions, calling it illegal.

    Results are expected to be announced on March 18.

    The outcome, with Putin’s foes in jail, exile, or dead, is not in doubt. In a survey conducted by VTsIOM in early March, 75 percent of the citizens intending to vote said they would cast their ballot for Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched, but it has been ratcheted up since. Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    Most say they have no expectation that the election will be free and fair, with the possibility for independent monitoring very limited. Nadezhdin said he would recruit observers, but it was unclear whether he would be successful given that only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations.

    “Who in the world thinks that it will be a real election?” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL, ahead of the vote.

    McFaul, speaking in Russian, added that he’s convinced that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and other democracies in the world will say that the election did not offer a fair choice, but doubted they will decline to recognize Putin as Russia’s legitimate president.

    “I believe that is the right action to take, but I expect that President Biden is not going to say that [Putin] is not a Russian president. And all the other leaders won’t do that either because they want to leave some kind of contact with Putin,” he said.

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule. He called on voters to cast their ballots at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action Noon Against Putin.


    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has promoted it.

    “We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin…. What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot,” Navalnaya said.

    How well this strategy will work remains unclear. Moscow’s top law enforcement office warned voters in the Russian capital on March 14 against heeding calls to take part in the action, saying participants face legal punishment.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Todd Prince, Current Time, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ban On Serbian Dinar Has Created Challenges In U.S. Relations With Kosovo, Envoy Says

    Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The vote, which is not expected to be free and fair, is also the first major election to take place in Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    The first polling station opened in Russia’s Far East. As the day progresses, voters will cast their ballots at nearly 100,000 polling stations across the country’s 11 time zones, as well as in regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed.

    By around 10 a.m. Moscow time, TsIK said 2.89 percent of the 110 million eligible voters had already cast their ballots. That figure includes those who cast early ballots, TsIK Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said.

    Some people trying to vote online reported problems, but officials said those being told they were in an electronic queue “just need to wait a little or return to voting later.”

    There were reports that public sector employees were being urged to vote early on March 15, a directive Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of the Golos voters’ rights movement, said was aimed at having workers vote “under the watchful eyes of their bosses.”

    Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in those Ukrainian regions, calling it illegal.

    Results are expected to be announced on March 18.

    The outcome, with Putin’s foes in jail, exile, or dead, is not in doubt. In a survey conducted by VTsIOM in early March, 75 percent of the citizens intending to vote said they would cast their ballot for Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched, but it has been ratcheted up since. Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    Most say they have no expectation that the election will be free and fair, with the possibility for independent monitoring very limited. Nadezhdin said he would recruit observers, but it was unclear whether he would be successful given that only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations.

    “Who in the world thinks that it will be a real election?” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL, ahead of the vote.

    McFaul, speaking in Russian, added that he’s convinced that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and other democracies in the world will say that the election did not offer a fair choice, but doubted they will decline to recognize Putin as Russia’s legitimate president.

    “I believe that is the right action to take, but I expect that President Biden is not going to say that [Putin] is not a Russian president. And all the other leaders won’t do that either because they want to leave some kind of contact with Putin,” he said.

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule. He called on voters to cast their ballots at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action Noon Against Putin.


    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has promoted it.

    “We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin…. What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot,” Navalnaya said.

    How well this strategy will work remains unclear. Moscow’s top law enforcement office warned voters in the Russian capital on March 14 against heeding calls to take part in the action, saying participants face legal punishment.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Todd Prince, Current Time, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russians Begin Voting In A Presidential Election Whose Outcome Is Not In Doubt

    Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The vote, which is not expected to be free and fair, is also the first major election to take place in Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    The first polling station opened in Russia’s Far East. As the day progresses, voters will cast their ballots at nearly 100,000 polling stations across the country’s 11 time zones, as well as in regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed.

    By around 10 a.m. Moscow time, TsIK said 2.89 percent of the 110 million eligible voters had already cast their ballots. That figure includes those who cast early ballots, TsIK Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said.

    Some people trying to vote online reported problems, but officials said those being told they were in an electronic queue “just need to wait a little or return to voting later.”

    There were reports that public sector employees were being urged to vote early on March 15, a directive Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of the Golos voters’ rights movement, said was aimed at having workers vote “under the watchful eyes of their bosses.”

    Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in those Ukrainian regions, calling it illegal.

    Results are expected to be announced on March 18.

    The outcome, with Putin’s foes in jail, exile, or dead, is not in doubt. In a survey conducted by VTsIOM in early March, 75 percent of the citizens intending to vote said they would cast their ballot for Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched, but it has been ratcheted up since. Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    Most say they have no expectation that the election will be free and fair, with the possibility for independent monitoring very limited. Nadezhdin said he would recruit observers, but it was unclear whether he would be successful given that only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations.

    “Who in the world thinks that it will be a real election?” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL, ahead of the vote.

    McFaul, speaking in Russian, added that he’s convinced that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and other democracies in the world will say that the election did not offer a fair choice, but doubted they will decline to recognize Putin as Russia’s legitimate president.

    “I believe that is the right action to take, but I expect that President Biden is not going to say that [Putin] is not a Russian president. And all the other leaders won’t do that either because they want to leave some kind of contact with Putin,” he said.

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule. He called on voters to cast their ballots at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action Noon Against Putin.


    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has promoted it.

    “We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin…. What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot,” Navalnaya said.

    How well this strategy will work remains unclear. Moscow’s top law enforcement office warned voters in the Russian capital on March 14 against heeding calls to take part in the action, saying participants face legal punishment.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Todd Prince, Current Time, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Macron Again Declines To Rule Out Western Troops In Ukraine, But Says Not Needed Now

    Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The vote, which is not expected to be free and fair, is also the first major election to take place in Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    The first polling station opened in Russia’s Far East. As the day progresses, voters will cast their ballots at nearly 100,000 polling stations across the country’s 11 time zones, as well as in regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed.

    By around 10 a.m. Moscow time, TsIK said 2.89 percent of the 110 million eligible voters had already cast their ballots. That figure includes those who cast early ballots, TsIK Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said.

    Some people trying to vote online reported problems, but officials said those being told they were in an electronic queue “just need to wait a little or return to voting later.”

    There were reports that public sector employees were being urged to vote early on March 15, a directive Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of the Golos voters’ rights movement, said was aimed at having workers vote “under the watchful eyes of their bosses.”

    Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in those Ukrainian regions, calling it illegal.

    Results are expected to be announced on March 18.

    The outcome, with Putin’s foes in jail, exile, or dead, is not in doubt. In a survey conducted by VTsIOM in early March, 75 percent of the citizens intending to vote said they would cast their ballot for Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched, but it has been ratcheted up since. Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    Most say they have no expectation that the election will be free and fair, with the possibility for independent monitoring very limited. Nadezhdin said he would recruit observers, but it was unclear whether he would be successful given that only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations.

    “Who in the world thinks that it will be a real election?” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL, ahead of the vote.

    McFaul, speaking in Russian, added that he’s convinced that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and other democracies in the world will say that the election did not offer a fair choice, but doubted they will decline to recognize Putin as Russia’s legitimate president.

    “I believe that is the right action to take, but I expect that President Biden is not going to say that [Putin] is not a Russian president. And all the other leaders won’t do that either because they want to leave some kind of contact with Putin,” he said.

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule. He called on voters to cast their ballots at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action Noon Against Putin.


    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has promoted it.

    “We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin…. What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot,” Navalnaya said.

    How well this strategy will work remains unclear. Moscow’s top law enforcement office warned voters in the Russian capital on March 14 against heeding calls to take part in the action, saying participants face legal punishment.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Todd Prince, Current Time, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Lawmakers Weigh Lend-Lease Program Favored By Trump As Ukraine Aid Compromise

    Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The vote, which is not expected to be free and fair, is also the first major election to take place in Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    The first polling station opened in Russia’s Far East. As the day progresses, voters will cast their ballots at nearly 100,000 polling stations across the country’s 11 time zones, as well as in regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed.

    By around 10 a.m. Moscow time, TsIK said 2.89 percent of the 110 million eligible voters had already cast their ballots. That figure includes those who cast early ballots, TsIK Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said.

    Some people trying to vote online reported problems, but officials said those being told they were in an electronic queue “just need to wait a little or return to voting later.”

    There were reports that public sector employees were being urged to vote early on March 15, a directive Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of the Golos voters’ rights movement, said was aimed at having workers vote “under the watchful eyes of their bosses.”

    Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in those Ukrainian regions, calling it illegal.

    Results are expected to be announced on March 18.

    The outcome, with Putin’s foes in jail, exile, or dead, is not in doubt. In a survey conducted by VTsIOM in early March, 75 percent of the citizens intending to vote said they would cast their ballot for Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched, but it has been ratcheted up since. Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    Most say they have no expectation that the election will be free and fair, with the possibility for independent monitoring very limited. Nadezhdin said he would recruit observers, but it was unclear whether he would be successful given that only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations.

    “Who in the world thinks that it will be a real election?” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL, ahead of the vote.

    McFaul, speaking in Russian, added that he’s convinced that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and other democracies in the world will say that the election did not offer a fair choice, but doubted they will decline to recognize Putin as Russia’s legitimate president.

    “I believe that is the right action to take, but I expect that President Biden is not going to say that [Putin] is not a Russian president. And all the other leaders won’t do that either because they want to leave some kind of contact with Putin,” he said.

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule. He called on voters to cast their ballots at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action Noon Against Putin.


    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has promoted it.

    “We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin…. What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot,” Navalnaya said.

    How well this strategy will work remains unclear. Moscow’s top law enforcement office warned voters in the Russian capital on March 14 against heeding calls to take part in the action, saying participants face legal punishment.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Todd Prince, Current Time, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Belarus Halts Lithuanian Imports In Response To Border Closures

    Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

    The vote, which is not expected to be free and fair, is also the first major election to take place in Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

    Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party — whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

    Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia’s Supreme Court.

    “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”

    The first polling station opened in Russia’s Far East. As the day progresses, voters will cast their ballots at nearly 100,000 polling stations across the country’s 11 time zones, as well as in regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed.

    By around 10 a.m. Moscow time, TsIK said 2.89 percent of the 110 million eligible voters had already cast their ballots. That figure includes those who cast early ballots, TsIK Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said.

    Some people trying to vote online reported problems, but officials said those being told they were in an electronic queue “just need to wait a little or return to voting later.”

    There were reports that public sector employees were being urged to vote early on March 15, a directive Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of the Golos voters’ rights movement, said was aimed at having workers vote “under the watchful eyes of their bosses.”

    Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in those Ukrainian regions, calling it illegal.

    Results are expected to be announced on March 18.

    The outcome, with Putin’s foes in jail, exile, or dead, is not in doubt. In a survey conducted by VTsIOM in early March, 75 percent of the citizens intending to vote said they would cast their ballot for Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer.

    The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched, but it has been ratcheted up since. Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

    Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

    Most say they have no expectation that the election will be free and fair, with the possibility for independent monitoring very limited. Nadezhdin said he would recruit observers, but it was unclear whether he would be successful given that only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations.

    “Who in the world thinks that it will be a real election?” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL, ahead of the vote.

    McFaul, speaking in Russian, added that he’s convinced that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and other democracies in the world will say that the election did not offer a fair choice, but doubted they will decline to recognize Putin as Russia’s legitimate president.

    “I believe that is the right action to take, but I expect that President Biden is not going to say that [Putin] is not a Russian president. And all the other leaders won’t do that either because they want to leave some kind of contact with Putin,” he said.

    Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public’s discontent with both the war and Putin’s iron-fisted rule. He called on voters to cast their ballots at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action Noon Against Putin.


    Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has promoted it.

    “We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin…. What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot,” Navalnaya said.

    How well this strategy will work remains unclear. Moscow’s top law enforcement office warned voters in the Russian capital on March 14 against heeding calls to take part in the action, saying participants face legal punishment.

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Todd Prince, Current Time, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Lithuania Says Hammer Attack On Navalny Aide ‘Well-Planned’ After Blaming Putin


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Should We Remove Soviet Monuments? Bulgaria Trying To Decide


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Navalny’s Widow Calls Putin A ‘Gangster’ Unworthy To Be Recognized As President

    Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) was behind a sweeping wave of drone attacks on several Russian regions on March 13 that reportedly set a Rosneft refinery on fire and targeted other economic and military objectives, a Ukrainian intelligence source told RFE/RL.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry earlier said its air defenses shot down 65 Ukrainian drones over six regions — 35 in Voronezh, 25 in Belgorod, eight in Bryansk and Kursk each, one in Leningrad, and one on Ryazan region.

    Regional officials reported that the Rosneft oil refinery in Ryazan was struck, a day after another drone attack seriously damaged a LUKoil refinery.

    Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine

    RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

    Pavel Malkov, the governor of Ryazan, some 180 kilometers southeast of Moscow, said the local Rosneft oil refinery, Russia’s seventh-largest, was on fire as a result of a drone attack.

    There were also casualties, according to preliminary information, Malkov wrote on Telegram, without providing further details.

    The Shot Telegram channel reported that the attack on the Rosneft subsidiary Ryazannefteprodukt also injured two people.

    Russian news agency RIA Novosti later quoted emergency services as saying that four drones had hit the refinery. The fire, which affected two tanks used in the processing of oil products on an area of some 175 square meters, was later extinguished, it said.

    The source, who is in security enforcement and spoke on condition of anonymity to RFE/RL, said that three Russian oil refineries — one in Ryazan, one in Kstovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region, and one in Kirishi in the Leningrad region — were targeted by Ukrainian drones as Kyiv seeks to inflict as much damage as possible to Russia’s economy

    “We have been systematically implementing a detailed strategy to diminish the economic potential of the Russian Federation. Our task is to deprive the enemy of resources and reduce the flow of oil money and fuel, which the Russia directs toward the war and the murdering of our citizens,” the source said

    Ukrainian drones also targeted a Russian air base in Buturlinovka and a military airfield in Voronezh region, the source said.

    Separately, an SBU source who wished to remain anonymous confirmed to Ukrayinska Pravda that the strikes had been orchestrated by the agency.

    “We are at war with everything that finances the Russian military and the war. And Russia is at war with civilians and high-rise buildings,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, wrote on Telegram, without directly confirming the attacks.

    In Belgorod, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said an apartment building was struck but there were no injuries, while according to TASS, the facade of the regional headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB) was damaged and windows were broken.

    The March 13 attacks came a day after another sweeping wave of strikes on multiple targets in Russia that reportedly started fires at two major oil facilities.

    The attacks damaged LUKoil’s NORSI refinery, Russia’s fourth-largest, in the Nizhny Novgorod region about 775 kilometers from the Ukrainian border and hit an oil depot in Oryol, 116 kilometers from Ukraine.

    Also on March 12, the Freedom of Russia Legion, the Russian Volunteer Corps, and the Siberian Battalion, which consist of Russian citizens who have been fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the war, claimed to have launched cross-border attacks into Russia territory.

    The Kremlin said Russian forces repelled the incursions and inflicted heavy losses on the armed groups. Neither claim could be independently verified.

    Meanwhile, Russian air strikes killed at least two people and wounded several others on March 13 in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Sumy regions, officials said.

    Two civilians were killed and 11 wounded in the eastern Donetsk region in the bombardment of a high-rise residential building in the city of Myrnohrad, regional Governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.

    In the northeastern region of Sumy, a Russian drone attack on a five-story apartment building destroyed 30 apartments and caused a number of casualties, the region’s military administration said on Telegram.

    Ten people were rescued from the rubble, eight of whom sustained injuries, it said.


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ukraine Is Building An Underground City Along The Front Lines


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • What Happens In LGBT Conversion Therapy In Russia


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.