Presidential election in Russia: voters paid tribute to Navalny

At noon this Sunday, queues formed in front of some polling stations in Moscow. This is the time when the opposition called to come and honor the memory of the late opponent Alexeï Navalny, and to denounce a presidential election tailor-made for Vladimir Putin.

In places, in the capital as in St. Petersburg, the AFP noted an influx, but in other places it was much more modest. At the polling station at the 2025 school in Moscow, a few dozen people arrived at noon, the appointment set by Yulia Navalnaïa for her husband’s supporters for this tribute. It is here that Alexeï Navalny had his best score during the municipal election in which he ran in 2013.

“There aren’t that many people, but it’s still a good result”judge Léonid Pakhine, an 18-year-old student who came for the occasion, “I didn’t have any particular expectations, I’m just happy that people came”. Denis, a 21-year-old who works in advertising, is there to express his support for the opposition without risking being arrested. “I came to express my solidarity with a very important person (…) this election is a way to honor the memory of Navalny”he said.

In another district of Moscow, Marino, in front of the office where Alexei Navalny was voting, a small number of voters responded to his wife’s call. “I came to say goodbye to him, he was my hero”, confides Natalia, a 65-year-old retiree. Her friend Elena, a 38-year-old engineer, accompanied her. She also came “for the memory of Alexei”. “This is our only opportunity to express an opinion”.

An opposition decimated by repression

These protests will not affect the very predictable outcome of the Russian presidential election, a vote intended to celebrate the triumph of Vladimir Putin. Aged 71, the leader faces three hand-picked and insignificant candidates. The opposition has been decimated by years of repression which has further accelerated with the conflict in Ukraine.

The entire week was also marked by deadly strikes and attempted armed incursions from Ukraine into Russian territory, responses to the daily bombings and assaults by Kremlin forces in its neighbor for more than two years.

On Sunday, a sixteen-year-old girl was killed in an air attack on the town of Belgorod, close to the border and very often targeted. A drone strike blamed on Ukraine also caused a refinery fire in southern Russia, with regional authorities reporting one death after a heart attack.

Despite these attacks, a prolonged deadly conflict and increasingly restricted freedoms, the master of the Kremlin can count on very real popularity and sees the election as a demonstration of unity of the Russians behind him.

In order to display a united front, it was also important for the Kremlin to ensure a high participation rate. At the start of the afternoon, this stood at 66%, according to official figures. Initial estimates and the results of a survey by a state institute, Vtsiom, should be known shortly after the closing of the last polling stations at 6 p.m. in the Kaliningrad enclave.