Russian President has another 6 year term in office of course from this weekends ‘vote’….
The West knocks the election….
There actually where anti-Putin protests…
Ukraine keeps drone strikes up against Russian oil depots…..
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Exit polls show Vladimir Putin winning a huge majority in Russia’s presidential election which had only one possible result. Polls suggest 71-year-old Putin has won the election with nearly 88% of the vote, and will overtake Joseph Stalin to become Russia’s longest-serving leader for more than 200 years. Putin was standing for the six-year term against three candidates from parties who have not criticised his rule nor his invasion of Ukraine.
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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Putin was “imitating” yet another election, adding that Russian leader would stop at nothing to rule forever and his election has no legitimacy.
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Britain, Poland, German and the US have criticised the election process as neither free nor fair. The British Foreign Office minister David Cameron said the elections had been held illegally in Ukrainian territory and offered “a lack of choice for voters and no independent monitoring”. The Polish Foreign Office said that voting took place in conditions of extreme repression. The German Foreign Ministry described the process as a pseudo-election and the White House said the elections were “obviously not free, nor fair”.
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Nationwide turnout was 74.22% at 6pm when polls closed, officials said, surpassing the 67.5% seen in 2018.
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At least 74 people were arrested across Russia in connection with the election, according to OVD-Info. Despite tight controls, there have been several dozen cases of vandalism at polling stations.
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Anti-Putin protests took place outside polling stations as Russian citizens lined up to vote at Russian embassies around the world.
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A Russian missile attack on the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv earlier today killed a man and wounded eight people….
Mar 17, 2024 – ISW Press
The Ukrainian State Security Service (SBU), Special Forces (SOF), and Unmanned Systems Forces reportedly conducted a successful drone strike against a Russian oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai on the night of March 16 to 17. Sources in the SBU told Ukrainian outlet Suspilne that the Ukrainian SBU, SOF, and Unmanned Systems Forces struck the crude oil atmospheric distillation columns of the Slavyansk oil refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban, Krasnodar Krai, resulting in a large fire.[8] Krasnodar Krai Operational Headquarters claimed that several drones attempted to strike the Slavyansk oil refinery and that Russian forces neutralized them, though falling drones caused a fire.[9] A Russian milblogger claimed that two of 17 drones that targeted the Slavyansk oil refinery struck the facility. Suspilne reported that SBU drones have recently successfully struck 12 oil refineries in Russia.[11] A Russian milblogger claimed that the Ukrainian strike on the Slavyansk oil refinery is the ninth Ukrainian strike on a Russian oil refinery in the past week. Another Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries are more serious than strikes on fuel depots because international sanctions against Russia complicate Russia’s ability to repair technologically complex oil refinery facilities.