Moscow accuses Kyiv of election sabotage

MOSCOW — Russia accused Ukraine on Saturday of stepping up "terrorist activities" during the Russian presidential election in order to attract more aid and weapons from the West.

"It is obvious that the corrupt regime in Kyiv has intensified its terrorist activities in connection with the ongoing presidential elections in Russia in order to demonstrate its activity to its Western handlers and to beg for even more financial assistance and lethal weapons," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It said that in one such incident, a Ukrainian drone had dropped a shell on a voting station in the Zaporizhzhia region.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said a fifth drone, close to the capital's Domodedovo airport, was downed on Sunday morning. No casualties or damage were reported.

State-run TASS news agency quoted a local election official as reporting no damage or injuries when the explosive device landed five or six meters from a building housing a polling station before it had opened in a village about 20 kilometers east of the city of Enerhodar.

There was no immediate comment from officials in Ukraine.

Four candidates are registered for the election, namely incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Leonid Slutsky, Vladislav Davankov from Russia's New People Party, and Nikolai Kharitonov, the Russian Communist Party's candidate.

Russia's governing party, United Russia, said it was facing a widespread denial-of-service attack — a form of cyberattack aimed at paralyzing web traffic — and had suspended nonessential services to repel it.

State news agency RIA quoted a senior telecoms official as blaming the cyberattacks on Ukraine and Western countries.

Thwarting attempts

Russian media quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Putin had been receiving military reports in recent days of attempted attacks by saboteurs in the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk, including several incursion attempts, all of which he was quoted as saying were thwarted.

In the Belgorod region where cross-border attacks from Ukraine have become part of daily life, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported the deaths of a man and a woman in a missile attack, and later in the day, one injury, after he said Russian defenses shot down 15 rockets approaching the regional capital.

Dmitry Azarov, governor of the Samara region 850 km southeast of Moscow, said the Syzran refinery was on fire following a drone attack but that an attack on a second refinery had been thwarted.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked his military forces and intelligence for new "long-range capabilities" in his nightly video address on Saturday, without mentioning the reported intensified attacks by his country's forces.

Kyiv's military said on Sunday that Russian air attacks had damaged agricultural companies and destroyed several industrial buildings in the Black Sea port of Odesa overnight.

Under Russia's presidential election law, the president, who serves as the head of state, is elected directly by the populace for a six-year term. Eligible presidential candidates must be Russian Federation citizens who are at least 35 years old, have resided in Russia for more than 25 years, and have never held citizenship of another country.

According to the rules, a candidate who secures more than half the votes will be elected president. If no candidate achieves a majority and there are more than two candidates, a second round of voting is held between the two candidates with the most votes, and the winner of this round will be elected.

The counting of votes will begin once the election concludes and will continue until the results are finalized. The final results will be confirmed no later than March 28 by Russia's Central Election Commission and will be announced within three days of confirmation.

Agencies - Xinhua