Protests Erupt at Russian Polling Stations Ahead of Putin’s Landslide ‘Victory’

A coordinated protest effort by Russian voters was unleashed at polling stations across the country on Sunday as they demonstrated their opposition to President Vladimir Putin, who is poised to win an election that only ever had one possible outcome: extending his political reign for another six years.

Putin, 71, faced little real opposition in the fight. His fiercest opponent and biggest threat, Alexei Navalny, died in a remote Arctic penal colony almost exactly a month ago, having been sentenced to more than three decades behind bars on charges internationally condemned as bogus and politically motivated.

His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, had urged Russians to turn out at noon on Sunday to quietly protest Putin, with multiple outlets reporting that lines at polling stations and Russian embassies around the world appeared to grow around midday. “You can ruin the ballot, you can write Navalny on it in bold letters, and even if you don’t see the point in voting at all, you can just come and stand at the polling station and then turn around and go home,” she encouraged them, according to Axios.

Read more at The Daily Beast.