More than 1,600 Russian citizens who are working or studying in the Czech Republic came to the Russian Embassy in Prague to vote in the presidential election on Friday, the embassy said on social media.
Presidential elections are being held in Russia from Friday to Sunday, while in the Czech Republic, Russian citizens could vote only on Friday. The polling station was open at the embassy from 8am to 8pm, with long queues forming outside.
The Russian nationals who spoke to CTK at the scene came to vote for rival candidates of current President Vladimir Putin or refused to comment on their choice.
The results of the election will be released after the votes are counted across Russia, which is expected on Monday.
“At 8pm, early voting was completed for all voters at polling station No. 8330 at the Russian Embassy in the Czech Republic. More than 1,600 Russian citizens could vote,” the embassy said.
The incumbent president Putin is widely expected to win a fifth presidential term in the elections.
Formally, the authorities have registered four candidates for the election. Alongside Putin, those are Nikolai Kharitonov for the Communists, Leonid Slutsky, who replaced the late longtime party chief Vladimir Zhirinovsky as head of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) the year before last, and Vladislav Davankov of the parliamentary party New People, which has only existed since 2020.
The authorities did not allow Boris Nadezhdin, among others, to stand as an anti-war candidate.
71-year-old Putin has been in power for 24 years, and another election would extend his rule until at least 2030. Given constitutional changes adopted several years ago, he will then be eligible to run for the presidency again. According to the media, the outcome of the election is almost certain, with Putin expected to win with an overwhelming majority of votes.
One-third of Russian voters turned out to vote on Friday. The Russian regime, according to foreign media, is seeking a high turnout to legitimise Putin’s continued stay in office and show unity in a nation that is increasingly isolated internationally because of the invasion of Ukraine.
