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Russia elections: Protesters arrested on final day of vote set to give Vladimir Putin fifth term - BBC News Russia elections: Navalny's widow Yulia thanks anti-Putin protesters as she casts vote in Berlin - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
More than eight million voters have cast their ballots online in this presidential election, according to an election commission official.
The organisers of today's "Noon against Putin" protest have praised voters for turning out at midday to register their opposition to the Russian leader and an election that they say is fixed. This is the first time that electronic voting has been used in a Russian presidential vote and one of those to take part was Vladimir Putin, who was filmed voting with a single click on a keyboard on Friday.
There was a clear spike in voters at polling stations in Moscow and St Petersburg and in several other cities including Perm, Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk. The head of independent monitoring group Golos (Voice) said earlier that the use of electronic voting made the whole election even less open to public scrutiny.
There were also big queues at embassies in Germany, Latvia, Armenia, Turkey and many other countries with large expat communities. The system was used in parliamentary elections three years ago in seven regions and opposition candidates at the time said it deprived them of victory.
But can we be sure they were protesting?
In Russia, protesters were urged not to carry placards or shout slogans so as to avoid arrest, and we already know that dozens of people have been detained. The mere fact they were turning up at noon was the point, the organisers have argued.
Equally Russian state media have posted videos of big queues in Berlin and Istanbul claiming they proved the validity of the vote.
Reporters on the ground say many of the voters in both those cities were protesters, although not all. The likelihood is that the reason most turned up at that appointed time was to make a point of protest.
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