The president ial elections in russia are going, which started today, it is known that they will last 3 days, and this is the first president ial election that will be held in such a multiday format the list of candidates consists of four people, these four people on a paper ballot or in an electronic version, if you vote through a remote electronic system, this is Vladislav Davankov from the new people party, ldpr, leonid slutsky, nikolai. Kharitonov of the communist party of the Russian Federation, as well as the current head of state Vladimir Putin, who is a selfnominated candidate in these elections. In total, more than 94,000 polling stations were organized on voting days, such a huge number. And more than 112 million ballots were printed for those people who want to come vote online. And the excitement is already noted. By this moment we have approached the turnout, which is, well, almost three hundredths 25. This is only on the first day of three possible days, when there is time for every opportunity to come and cast your vote for one of the four candidates. So, if the operation is for this cycle, namely nikolai bulaev, then at the moment they have already voted, what is 25 , how many people is this, and this is more than 27 million voters. On the tsentrazirkom website, the figures are updated in real time, yes, we see that the figure has been updated, more than 25 , already. At the moment. So, polling stations opened throughout the country. If we talk about moscow time and other regions, for example, the far east, the first ones opened at 23 00 moscow time, this, of course, was kamchatka and chukotka, if you take it. And today at 9 am , sections of the westernmost region of russia, the kaliningrad region, have already opened. I would like to note that turnout indicators there are also at extremely high levels, well talk about this in a little more detail. I would also like to note that the voting will continue, we strongly remind everyone. We urge you to come and cast your vote for one candidate or another before march 17, 8 00 local time, almost 2. 6 million russians have already taken part in the elections ahead of schedule, yes, that is, a quarter, every fourth russian, of those who are eligible vote, weve already made our choice, this is only the first day, which is a working day, we expect what will happen based on the results of the voting weekend, lets now look at specific regions. This figure was less than 15 in the novosibirsk region and altai territory, but here it is worth remembering that in these regions remote electronic voting is taking place at the same time, its results will be slightly different. Eliminates all possibilities of falsification or manipulation or any inaccuracies, this is a Clear Technology that, if you you voted, that means your vote will reach the candidate, it will be counted, and will not go anywhere. So, if we talk about another region, for example. The ural Federal District is in the lead here so far in terms of turnout; this is the Yamalo Nenets autonomous okrug, where almost 40 of people have already made their choice; in the khantamansiysk autonomous okrug, 26 of voters voted; its worth talking about the chelyabinsk region, despite the fact that the turnout there seems to be not so high, 19 , voted remotely, cast their vote, 47 of those who wanted vote remotely. So, 227 residents have already chosen this form, which is approximately every tenth of those who have reached the age when they can make a choice and take part in the countrys electoral process. Further. Lets take a closer look at the far eastern Federal District, the largest turnout is here in chukotka; according to the results of the first day of voting, 64 of voters made their choice, a truly impressive figure. By the way, in 2018, when the president ial elections were held on the same day, the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug was also the leader in turnout, then it exceeded 82 . Voting was active on the first day in the magadan region, the turnout was almost 40. 8 ; in buryat, the turnout in the Federal District was still the most modest, just over 33 . However, of course, we are not drawing conclusions yet, it is too early to draw them, many are only going to vote on saturday and sunday, since these are weekends, and for many, making their choice on a day off is simply convenient. If we talk in more detail about what is happening at the polling stations themselves, but there were some surprises there, lets say, nuances, embarrassments, how. Disappearing ink and false messages about closures at polling stations we already encountered this on the first day of voting in the russian president ial elections, and of course ukrainian telegram Media Channels spread the word about outright fakes. Anastasia efimova will talk about attempts to influence the electoral process in russia. On Ukrainian Television screens today she is almost a heroine of the resistance. Quote the aggressor country is russia, that is, it forces. Until after the referendum in 2020, already in the russian lugansk region, officials did not we took on the task of repairing the roof, windows and balconies. She knows very well who the man with the tricolor on his bulletproof vest is protecting her from on voting day. Its from the heart. Expression of pain in new regions is one of the main objects of painful fixation in ukrainian media today. In short, the quote orcs go doortodoor and forcefully abduct. People to fake votes, however, such rhetoric is quite predictable. I am now in the zaporozhye region, in principle, all this can be seen from the flag of the region behind me, but at the same time today i was in kherson too, those nonsense that the enemies are spreading, about how they are driving someone out of the house, by force, they are leading someone there, i can say it as a joke, the only video on this topic is. How young rescuers in the kherson region, as a training for the camera, carried me on a stretcher to the polling station and checked that the guys were hardy, ready for any emergency situations, and if we talk very seriously, the only emergency situations that can happen are provocations and terror with side of the ukrainian fascists, thats another story, also familiar, ballots, supposedly stuffed. Of course, the first and most important calculation for them is mass appeal, that is, there is no task to convince you specifically, there is a task to send out hundreds of thousands of copies of these fakes in the hope that at least someone will fall for it , now we see that in the first 12 hours of voting, and half a day has passed, quite a large number of homemade preparations have already come out, that is, what they filmed in advance in some kind of literal studios, that is, some rooms there, which they registered under russian electoral sections, they made some videos in advance, some stuffing, some documents were falsified, that is, it was all prepared for hour x in advance, so that at the right moment they could Start Publishing this story now, only this time it was fake stuffing frankly speaking, it didnt work out, here are videos about the socalled disappearing ink, and versions of ukrainian dreamers at polling stations seem to give russians special pens, a person puts a tick next to the name of the selected candidate, and a member of the Election Commission draws a lighter and the tick is gone. But everyone who was at the polling station today will see that the ballot is not real, it is in the original. Despite their efforts, things are going smoothly, and the masters of fake cases, based on the totality of their merits , apparently have every chance of remaining; its just that home preparations are running out, voting is their lot. Anastasia efimova, olga alvukhina and andrey sapegin, lead. Almost 334 thousand observers received accreditation for the elections, as stated by cec chairman ella pomfilova. Most of them are observers from the public chamber, 1,560 people. And another 126 will be observers from candidates proxies and 5100 will represent political parties. In addition, the head of the central Election Commission reported that 76 International Observers from 106 countries were accredited for the elections; according to panfilov, they have the right to go anywhere. Russia expects International Observers to visit at least 53 regions. Earlier , the ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that foreign observers were ready to visit new regions of russia. Here we have an electronic voting terminal. And regular ones too, that is, you have both electronic and regular voting . Interesting. And literally everything is interesting to foreign observers. Hamayunkhan took a vacation for this purpose and came to moscow from pakistan. Before that, he managed to visit. Observer at elections in uzbekistan. I decided to come because i was interested in how the voting process is organized in different countries. When i came to your embassy in islamabad, i reported this obtaining a visa went quite quickly. Its very interesting, the voting process itself is transparent and understandable, this is something that i can see myself, but here they can vote using electronic machines, so on paper. Perhaps it was the technical equipment that attracted the most attention from foreign observers. For voting, and im surprised that people can vote at home, in france there is no such thing, it is convenient for people who have difficulty moving, for example, the elderly. On the ground, foreign observers were helped by their russian colleagues, as the Expert Center for independent public monitoring noted, foreigners have a lot to learn. The uniqueness of the system lies in the fact that throughout the country, in all constituent entities of the Russian Federation, independent, highly qualified public observers work in. Suggests that they have an extensive arsenal of tools in the United States and will call to account those people, International Independent observers who will monitor the elections. In total , over 333 thousand people went to the russian president ial elections as observers. 706 foreign guests from 106 countries were accredited for international observation, including spain, iceland, usa, italy, greece and mexico. During these 3 days they will visit from now. As you know, today in our country , in accordance with the constitution of russia , president ial elections have begun, in order to disrupt the voting process, to intimidate people, at least in the regions bordering ukraine, the kiev neonazi regime is planning to try to carry out a number of criminal, demonstrative armed actions, this is primarily application. From a military and humanitarian point of view, the action is, as already mentioned, an attempt to interfere with the president ial elections in russia. I am sure that our people, the people of russia, will respond to this with even greater unity. Whom they decided to intimidate, the russian people, the multinational people of russia. This has not happened, and i am sure it will never happen. Another possible goal of an action of this kind. Thus, basic conditions are necessary to ensure the security of russia, the internal political stability of our state, and ultimately to achieve all the goals of national development, for the future of our homeland, which, despite any attempts of our enemies and illwishers will, without any doubt, be reliably provided. I would ask the minister of defense. To lay down the situation that is developing at this moment in time, please, this was footage of the meeting of the president with permanent members of the Russian Security council via videoconference. The Russian Military in the ovdeevsky direction continues to storm the position of the Ukrainian Armed forces. As a result, according to the ministry of defense, Armored Vehicles of the enemy stronghold were destroyed. We will learn the latest data on the progress of the special operation from our correspondent denis alekseev. Denis, welcome. Denis, welcome again. We just listened to the president , who expressed confidence that despite all the provocations that continue in the border areas along the front line, all the tasks that our military faces will be completed, tell us about the situation by this hour, what do you know, how are our forces advancing . Yes, indeed, our military personnel are ready to continue to carry out all assigned tasks, but the artillerymen of the center group, in particular, already seem. In nightmares they are seen by the ukrainians commander, so harmoniously and methodically they work on the positions of the vsushnikov in the ovdeevsky direction, they just want to gain a foothold, its impossible to just retreat, losing lines every day, but no, ours are right there, the ministry of defense announced the data for the week, and so in this direction only the armed forces of ukraine lost about 3. 00 people, at least 11 brigades in the ssu were seriously damaged, here is footage of the destruction of another one. Local footage from a drone, our fighters identified a Ukrainian Communications center, and not just walkietalkies, radar antennas, the starlink system, american, so advertised , all the same for liquidated tanks, Armored Vehicles, antiaircraft guns, but they do not take root on the fronts, today in odessa internet publics information appeared about the next arrivals from the russian side, in other words, a series of highprecision strikes on military targets was recorded in odessa and suburbs. The Russian Ministry of defense did not say what exactly, but one of the targets could previously have been part of the air defense of the Ukrainian Armed forces. But what are the results of highprecision strikes for incomplete a week . From march 9 to 15, the armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out 50 group strikes with highprecision weapons, fire floating rocket systems and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, against airfield infrastructure facilities, the armed forces of ukraine, and weapons repair shops. Military equipment, storage warehouses for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and unmanned boats, an arsenal and basic fuel and lubricants. All designated targets are hit. The deployment points of units of the Ukrainian Armed forces were also hit, formation of nationalists, foreign mercenaries. Well, lets return to the data for the day in the southern donetsk direction, three more attacks by assault groups in the ssu were repelled. Our units pushed back the enemy and improved the situation at the front line. A mig29 fighter and two mi8 helicopters of the Ukrainian Air force, a tochka u tactical missile, five hamer guided bombs made in france, 86 rockets of multiple launch rocket systems, haimros made in the usa, vampire production and grad, as well as 915 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles were destroyed aircraft. Donetsk direction, our Southern Group has a lot of work there near oryom. This time, the reason for the failure was not even the predecessor of zaluzhnaya, but a drawdown of the drone by means of electronic warfare. He noted that russia is ahead in this regard, but of course, not only in this regard. That is, the rhetoric of official kiev was quickly picked up by the newly appointed commanderinchief, if nothing works out on the fronts, we must put pressure on. We are sure that the statement that war is on our doorstep is a fiction, i think that Emmanuel Macron became a victim of his own rhetoric and ended up in a dead end of his own making. Macron contradicted himself. To himself, he insisted that paris would be ready to respond in case of escalation, that it would not take the initiative, then he said that the situation in ukraine does not require sending the French Military there, then he did not rule out such a possibility; his former minister was also on the morning television. Foreign affairs, jean ifledrian, who, as an experienced diplomat, was invited to clarify the position of the elysee. I do not have say what we are doing immediately do it. As former president Francois Hollande said, this is called creating strategic ambiguity, the purpose of which is to sow doubt; what Emmanuel Macron said was said not to say what to do, but not to limit our options in this game. However, as the Russian Proverb says what goes around comes around, the political storm on the pages of macrons figaro, which quote blows the coals, is criticized by the entire french opposition, from leftwing parties to rightwing ones. One gets the impression. Saw footage of him at one of the polling stations in moscow. It is clear that the screen was showing the usual news broadcast on channel russia1, but in paris it was presented almost as an election campaign. The main federal channel of russia cut out and showed several wellselected fragments from an interview with the french president. Its like an election poster when you see the face of macron, who is shown as the real enemy of russia. However, western propaganda contradicts itself. Here is the british magazine economist in the headline calls russia a rogue because of sanctions, but the article itself essentially refutes this. America and europe have relied on two strategies the defense of ukraine and sanctions. However, the wests unshakable determination to continue arming ukraine has been shamefully shaken. Meanwhile, sanctions turned out to be less effective than expected. As the publication writes, the west needs a longterm strategy in relations with moscow, more than just help to ukraine, but there is no such thing now. Just as there is no unity in europe regarding support for the kiev regime, german chancellor olaf scholz was not impressed by macrons belligerent speech germany has not changed its position on the possible sending of bundeswehr forces to ukraine, they will not be sent there. Boris ivanin, natalya goncharova, lead. 18 00 moscow time you are watching the russia 24 tv channel. Enemy strikes on russian territory will not go unpunished, Vladimir Putin stated this at a meeting with permanent members of the council