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This translation was made by AI

The first day of voting is almost over. We have already reported on how the elections began. Here is what else has happened.

Threats

  • In Tatarstan, the team of independent candidate Irina Nikiforova withdrew from monitoring the elections. According to Nikiforova, her monitors started to receive threats, and the police refused to accept their statements.
  • In Karachay-Cherkessia (a region in the North Caucasus), the Yabloko party candidate Akhmed Abazov withdrew from the elections after receiving threats to himself and his family. Earlier, he said that he was being pressured to withdraw his candidacy.

20 September, 18:43 The post about Abazov withdrawing from the elections due to threats to his family turned out to be fake. He is still listed as a candidate on the Central Election Commission website. Yabloko initially confirmed his withdrawal, but deleted the post on 19 September.

  • Unknown individuals sent threatening messages to a credit organisation where Yabloko party candidate Dmitry Mamaev works in Kaliningrad Oblast (a region on the Baltic Sea).

Exclusion and removal

  • There have been reports of almost 1,300 monitors from the Communist Party (CPRF) and Yabloko being denied access to polling stations, according to calculations by the news outlet “7×7.”
  • In Moscow Region, there were attempts to deny accreditation to 68 monitors, and a further monitor was almost removed directly from their polling station.

  • In Novosibirsk (the largest city in Siberia), election monitor Roman Malozemov was expelled from a polling station.

    19 September, 9:40 A CPRF representative told the court that the party had deliberately withdrawn Malozemov. Last year, he stood in the Novosibirsk city council elections against the CPRF candidate, which the party described as discrediting.

  • In Tambov Oblast (a region in central Russia), around 200 CPRF monitors were denied access.

Cameras

  • In St Petersburg, several Yabloko candidates were no longer able to view live video streams from polling stations.
  • In Perm Krai (an area on the western slopes of the Urals), the local branch of the CPRF also reported that its representatives had not been given access to polling station video feeds.

Draft notices

  • Even before voting began, it had become known that three members of a precinct electoral commission in St Petersburg had been served draft notices requiring them to appear at the military draft office on 18 September. Today, draft notices also arrived for two monitors in Moscow.

Warnings

  • In Volgograd (a large city in southern Russia), police have been handing out official warnings to activists about the inadmissibility of protests during the elections. One journalist has also received such a document.

Bans

  • At one polling station (reportedly in Moscow), it was banned to bring apples onto the premises.
  • Pharmacies in Perm (the administrative centre of Perm Krai in the Urals) have been advised not to sell large quantities of brilliant green antiseptic and iodine to individual customers until the end of the elections.