On Sunday, the final day of voting in Russia’s presidential election, Russians came out in an unorthodox protest against the Kremlin. At midday, they showed up at polling stations within the country and at embassies across the globe to take part in the ‘Noon Against Putin’ movement.
The strategy, assembled piece by piece by the motley Russian opposition, was simple. Come to your local polling station at noon local time on 17 May. Vote against Putin, for any other candidate you like, or simply spoil your ballot paper.
The trajectory the Kremlin is plotting suggests that dark things lie ahead for Russia: more war, more repression
Some opposition figures spent the weeks before the election bickering over the details: which specific candidate people should vote for, how they should choose. Anti-war leftists decided to call for people to spoil their ballots by writing ‘For a just world’ on them. Navalny’s team even rolled out a somewhat redundant app that would determine a candidate randomly.
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