Nicolas Tonev // Photo credit: NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP
modified to
9:25 p.m., March 17, 2024
The “Noon against Putin” operation, launched by Vladimir Putin’s opponents, was widely followed in front of the Russian embassy in Paris, but also in Germany. In Berlin, Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaïa, voted in her embassy. The operation was also a success in Russia, during this last day of voting.
If we are to believe the photos and videos taken by people who came to vote at noon, the “Noon against Putin” operation was a success. Silent queues, so that the authorities could not blame a form of demonstration, formed in front of polling stations in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, but also in the Far East.
“The town hall justified the queues by explaining that they formed because of security measures”
People came despite text messages sent by regime trolls to ban queuing. So all of this worked, including in the most distant regions, as a journalist affiliated with Alexeï Navalny’s movement testifies on Radio Svoboda: “In Vladivostok, from midday, there were people arriving in the polling stations and there were queues even though there was no one there between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. In Novosibirsk, there was the same thing and the town hall justified the queues by explaining that they were forming because of security measures.
The Russian government sought justification for the presence of people, which is a form of recognition of the success of the movement. Vladimir Putin will remain president, but this kind of full-scale survey carried out by the midday vote operation shows that deep down, there is still an opposition in the country.