At Russian embassies across Europe large crowds gather to vote

Yulia Navalnaya, widow of the late Kremlin opposition leader Alexei Navalny, attended the Berlin rally – Copyright AFP SAID KHATIB

Russians formed long queues outside Moscow’s embassies in European capitals on Sunday to cast their votes on the final day of elections set to extend President Vladimir Putin’s rule.

Several polling stations attracted anti-Putin rallies organised in memory of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Yulia Navalnaya, his widow, received flowers from supporters and chatted with fellow voters in the long line outside the Russian embassy in Berlin.

Navalny supporters had called for people to go to polling stations in a “Midday Against Putin” protest and spoil their ballots.

Navalny, Putin’s most prominent rival, died in mysterious circumstances in an Arctic prison last month.

“I will use my ballot as a leaflet,” said Tatyana Leontyeva, 43, as she waited for her turn to vote outside Russia’s Paris embassy.

“I think I will write Navalny on it, I will say that Putin is illegitimate” she told AFP.

Vyacheslav Dorofeyev, who works for a French bank, said that there “is the desire to somehow change the situation”.

– ‘Make Putin’s job more difficult’ –

In Moldova, police detained a 54-year-old man after two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the Russian embassy, according to press reports.

“He justified his action by some dissatisfaction he has with the actions of the Russian authorities,” police said.

There were no reports of violence elsewhere.

In Istanbul queues outside Russia’s consulate reached several hundred metres, with many having arrived for the midday protest appointment.

“We want to make Putin’s job more difficult,” said Yuri, who like his companion Elena — wearing Ukraine’s national colour yellow — declined to give his last name.

The couple said they fled Russia in December 2022.

“I was devastated when Navalny died, I wept. That’s why I came at noon today,” said Vadim, 31, a Russian married to a Ukrainian.

In Belgrade, activists held up a banner reading “Putin is not Russia”, winning applause from many of the hundreds of people queueing at the polling station.

“Some people plan to spoil their ballot, to make it invalid by voting for multiple candidates,” said Peter Nikitin, an activist and founder of a local organisation for a democratic Russia. “If I have time, I will do the same,” he told AFP.

– ‘Saving the world’ –

Not all voters were against Putin’s re-election.

“How can you be against Putin?”, said one Russian man living in Paris who declined to give his name. “He is saving the world.”

Svetlana Myasnikova, a 53-year-old teacher said she too would vote for Putin. “He is the best president ever,” she told AFP at the Paris embassy.

In The Hague, thousands of people formed lines of several hundred metres outside the embassy where police had cordoned off a street.

Some were dressed in blue and white, the colour of the Russian opposition, while others sang protest songs and waved Ukrainian flags, or laid flowers near a picture of Navalny, local media reported.

“Everything that is going on with Russia with Putin has to go,” said a protester, according to the the NOS public broadcaster. “There must be fair elections.”

– ‘Pointless war’ –

In Tallinn, Anastasia Korobova, a 44-year old Kazakh-born Russian activist, said: “So many people don’t want war, don’t want their relatives to die in a pointless war or to kill people.”.

In Vilnius, where an estimated 500 people were gathered, some held up posters of Navalny saying “Putin killed Navalny”.

“We understand that this is a symbolic rally, but we also know that many dictatorships fell after similar events,” Ivan Zhdanov, who manages Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, told AFP.

Also at the rally Olga, 40, who declined to give her last name, said “Russia is gradually turning into a gulag where you can’t talk.”

But 66-year old construction worker Andrey told AFP he had voted for “stability”.

In a war, “you choose the one who is experienced”, he said.

Many western governments had already condemned the Russian election as a sham.

On Sunday, Germany’s foreign ministry called the vote “pseudo-elections”.

They were neither “free nor fair and the result does not surprise anyone”, it said on X, formerly Twitter.

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