MOSCOW
\nRussian police detained at least eight people Friday for acts of vandalism at polling stations on the first day of voting in presidential elections, officials said.
\nAuthorities did not say if the protests were directed against longtime leader Vladimir Putin, and state-media reports said voting was \u201ccontinuing as normal.\u201d
\nIn Moscow, a video published by the independent SOTA news outlet showed an elderly woman setting a voting booth alight, filling a polling station with smoke before she is detained by police.
\nAnother video in the capital showed a woman pouring dye into a ballot box. She was detained and charged with \u201cobstructing the exercise of electoral rights,\u201d investigators said.
\nFour others in the Russian regions of Voronezh, Karachay-Cherkessia and Rostov were also arrested for pouring dye into ballot boxes, officials said.
\nIn the remote Siberian region of Khanty-Mansi, a woman was detained for trying to burn a ballot box with a Molotov cocktail, voting officials said.
\n\u201cIn the city of Kogalym at polling station No. 484, an unsuccessful attempt was made to set fire to a stationary ballot box using a Molotov cocktail,\u201d the region\u2019s election commission said.
\nIn the Chelyabinsk region, police detained a man who tried to set firecrackers off at a polling station, the TASS news agency reported, citing the regional government.
\nSimilar incidents of vandalism were also reported in Saint Petersburg and in the annexed Crimean peninsula, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW Russian police detained at least eight people Friday for acts of vandalism at polling stations on the first day of voting in presidential elections, officials said. Authorities did not say if the protests were directed against longtime leader Vladimir Putin, and state-media reports said voting was \u201ccontinuing as normal.\u201d In Moscow, a video published […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-394096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n