Rocket hail shortly before the presidential elections: horror day for Vladimir Putin!

Putin has no interest in images and videos of burning oil refineries in Russia and fleeing Russian soldiers just before the elections. This destroys the image of a safe Russia that he protects from chaos. It is certainly no coincidence that the attacks are taking place now.

Ulrich Schmid, Russia expert at the University of St. Gallen, confirmed this to Blick. He doesn’t expect them to have a major impact on this weekend’s election. He warns: “Such actions can have a counterproductive effect. The attacks allow Kremlin propaganda to point out, in a treacherous reversal of cause and effect, how dangerous Ukraine is to Russia and that a Russian victory is all the more important. And according to Putin’s narrative, victory over Ukraine is only possible under his rule.

Not really. It is considered certain that Putin will win another term. Putin is one of four candidates on the ballot, but none of the others pose a realistic challenge. All of his fiercest critics have been forced into exile, imprisoned or have died – such as well-known Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny († 47), who died in prison just a few weeks ago.

Although the outcome of the elections is already certain, the government is waging an intensive campaign to strengthen Putin’s legitimacy at home and abroad. Putin has appeared increasingly in the media in recent weeks, meeting with students, visiting factories and even flying in a nuclear bomber. According to internal Kremlin documents recently published by Estonian news website Delfi, the government spent around one billion euros on propaganda in the run-up to the elections.

It seems cynical: the Russian presidential elections are taking place on the tenth anniversary of the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. There – and also in the occupied and annexed Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – the polls were opened a few days ago. This is despite the fact that all these areas are internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.

A Zaporizhia resident complained to the British BBC about pro-Russian collaborators who went door to door with ballot boxes and sought voters accompanied by armed soldiers. «Dear voters, we care about your safety! “You don’t have to go anywhere to vote – we will come to your home with ballot papers and ballot boxes,” the Russian-appointed election commission in the Zaporizhia region said on social media.

Ukrainian Governor of Zaporizhia, Ivan Fyodorov, 35, told the BBC that residents of his partially occupied region are being intimidated into voting: “Our citizens are very scared. If Russians come to their apartment with soldiers and ask if they want to vote for Putin, everyone will of course say yes. Because everyone wants to save their life. But that does not mean that our citizens want to support Putin.”

The ‘High Afternoon Against Putin’ protest is planned before the elections in Russia, as expert Schmid knows. All opposition-minded Russians are urged not to vote against Putin until the last day of the elections, i.e. on Sunday at noon.

“The resulting queues are intended to represent a demonstration against Putin and to show the opposition that they are not alone. However, it is uncertain whether this campaign will be a success,” said Schmid. Even before his death, Navalny also spoke out in favor of carrying out this action.