Polls open in Russian vote to extend Putin’s reign

SpaceWar.com reports: “Russians started voting on Friday in a three-day presidential election set to hand hardline leader Vladimir Putin another six-year term as fresh attacks bring the raging conflict in Ukraine further into Russian territory.

In power as president or prime minister since the final day of 1999, the former KGB agent is casting the election as a show of Russians’ loyalty and support for his military assault on Ukraine, now in its third year.

Polling stations in a country spread over 11 time zones opened at 8:00 am on Friday (2000 GMT Thursday) on the Far Eastern Kamchatka peninsula and will close Sunday at 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) in Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, wedged between EU members Poland and Lithuania.

Victory will allow Putin to stay in power until 2030, longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century…”

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