By
NBC News
Russians crowded into voting centers this Sunday on the last day of the presidential elections, heeding an apparent call from the opposition to protest against the president, Vladimir Putin, in a race that offered them no real alternatives.
Putin is in the lead with almost 88% of the votes when 24.4% of the ballots have been counted, Ella Pamfilova, president of the Central Electoral Commission, reported this Sunday.
[Dye on the ballots, flowers to the Kremlin and exits “at noon against Putin”: this is how Russians protest in the election]
With this victory, Putin would secure
six more years in a fifth term after a disputed three-day vote marked by protests
by the population opposed to the president who has dismantled the opposition and repressed dissidents.
The elections occurred amid attacks inside Russia with Ukrainian missiles and drones, in which several people have died.
The elections took place in a very controlled environment in which Putin only competes against three symbolic rivals and any criticism against the president or his occupation of Ukraine is silenced.
Putin's bitterest political rival, Alexei Navalny, died in a Siberian prison last month, and other critics of his regime are in jail or in exile.
Beyond the fact that voters have no other choice, independent election observation is extremely limited.
Navalny's aides urged those dissatisfied with Putin or the war to go to polling stations on Sunday afternoon, and lines outside polling stations in Russia and at its embassies around the world appeared to be growing at that hour.
Among those who responded to the call was Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny's widow, who joined a long line at the Russian embassy in Berlin as some in the crowd applauded her or chanted her name.
Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Alexei Navalny, in line outside the Russian embassy in Berlin. Ebrahim Noroozi / AP
She was in line for more than five hours and, after casting her vote, she told reporters that she wrote her late husband's name on the ballot.
When asked if she had a message for Putin, Navalnaya responded: "Please stop asking for messages from me or anyone else to Mr. Putin. There can be no negotiations or anything with Mr. Putin, because he is a murderer, a gangster."
Some Russians waiting to vote in Moscow and St. Petersburg told The Associated Press news agency that they were part of the protest, but it was not possible to confirm whether everyone in line was also part of the protest.
A woman who identified herself as Yulia and joined the line at a voting center in the afternoon in Moscow told the AP that it was her first time voting.
"Even if my vote changes nothing, my conscience will be clear... for the future I want to see for our country," he said.
She, like other interviewees, did not give her full name for security reasons.