Two dead in new attacks on Russian soil during the presidential election

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Handout / Telegram / @vvgladkov / AFP 12:45 p.m., March 16, 2024

Two people were killed, according to Russian authorities, in new strikes on Saturday in Belgorod, capital of the region of the same name bordering Ukraine, kyiv being accused of increasing bombings on the occasion of the Russian presidential election.

“Great misfortune, two people died, a man and a woman,” regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram, adding that eight rockets had been shot down over Belgorod.

The Russian regions bordering Ukraine suffered new strikes on Saturday, attacks which left at least two dead, in the middle of the presidential election, and which Vladimir Putin, promised a triumphant re-election, has sworn to avenge.

In Belgorod, a town very close to Ukraine and often targeted, “two people died, a man and a woman,” the governor of the region of the same name, Viatcheslav Gladkov, said on Telegram, adding that eight rockets had been shot down. . 

He said the man died when his truck was hit, and the woman was killed at a parking lot.

The latter's son was seriously injured and doctors are "fighting for his life".

Two other people were injured.

A video, published on social networks, shows a strong explosion at a parking lot, one of the parked cars being thrown by the force of the blast.

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Previously, the Russian Defense Ministry indicated that it had shot down missiles, rockets and drones over the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk, targets of attacks from neighboring Ukraine all week.

On Friday, Vladimir Putin vowed that Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory would not go "unpunished".

kyiv has been promising for months to bring the conflict across the border, in response to the offensive and bombing of the country for more than two years.

In recent weeks, airstrikes have intensified and fighters, presenting themselves as anti-Putin Russians, say they are carrying out armed incursions.

The Russian army claims to have pushed them back.

These attacks occur while the Kremlin wants, with the presidential election launched on Friday and which will end on Sunday, to display the image of a Russia united behind its leader.

According to Vladimir Putin, their aim is to “disrupt” the vote.

Attack on refineries

However, its result is beyond doubt, the opposition having been eradicated.

But the vote was also punctuated on Friday by several damage to electoral offices.

Around ten people were arrested in several regions for pouring coloring into ballot boxes, throwing a Molotov cocktail at a polling station or setting fire to a voting booth.

The precise motives for these actions are not known.

The head of the electoral commission, Ella Pamfilova, claimed that their perpetrators were acting for money promised by “bastards, from abroad”.

On Friday, in a Moscow polling station, Nadezhda, 23, told AFP that in those around her, "we are all used to the idea that everything is already decided for us, there is nothing we can do about it."

She said she came to vote because, otherwise, she would have had "problems" with her employer.

At each election in Russia, public administrations and companies are accused by specialized NGOs, the opposition and the media of orchestrating the vote of their employees, under penalty of sanctions.

According to the independent Russian media

The Bell

, classified as a "foreign agent", the Russian airline Aeroflot forced its employees to vote.

President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party also said it was the target of "large-scale" computer attacks against its "electronic services", which its experts reject. 

Drone attacks were also reported in the Russian region of Samara, some 1,000 km from the Ukrainian border, targeting two refineries and causing a fire in one of them, according to the regional governor.

Russian oil sites, sometimes very far from the front, have become prime targets for attacks in recent weeks.

Russia did not indicate whether the drones targeting them were launched from Ukraine or from Russian territory.

The Russian security services (FSB), for their part, have increased the arrests of people accused of preparing sabotage operations and attacks on Russian territory on behalf of Ukraine.

Again on Saturday, they announced the arrest of a man in the Sverdlovsk region (Urals), accused of wanting to commit an attack against a railway junction.