Russia began three days of voting on Friday for a presidential election that is expected to extend Vladimir Putin’s reign by six years.
Two years after the start of the war in Ukraine, Putin dominates the Russian political landscape and none of the three other candidates on the ballot present a credible challenge.
The Kremlin says Putin, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, will win because he has support from across society to save Russia from post-Soviet chaos and stand up to the West.
Russia’s best-known opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly last month in an Arctic penal colony and other Kremlin critics are in exile or in prison. The opposition considers this vote to be a sham.
More than 114 million Russians are eligible to vote, including in what Moscow calls its “new territories” – four regions of Ukraine that its forces only partly control but which it claims as part of the Russia. Ukraine says elections are being held there illegal and void.
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Putin is running against communist Nikolai Kharitonov, Leonid Slutsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, and Vladislav Davankov of the New People party. Two anti-war candidates, Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova, were prevented from running by the electoral commission, which cited irregularities in their documents.
Navalny’s supporters called on people across Russia to protest by going to the polls at noon on Sunday at the same time in each of the country’s 11 time zones.
They presented the “Noon Against Putin” action as a way for citizens to express their opposition without risking arrest, since they will be waiting in line to vote legally. The Kremlin has warned the population against participating in unauthorized gatherings.
Putin, 71, will surpass Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and become the longest-serving Russian leader since Empress Catherine the Great in the 18th century if he completes another six-year term.
Under constitutional changes approved by voters in 2020, he would then be eligible to run again, potentially extending his term until 2036.