Protesters adopt tactic of late Navalny to register protest to Putin reelection

He died in Vladimir Putin’s jails a month before the vote, but late opposition leader Alexei Navalny will still play a role Sunday as Russians complete three days of voting that are all but certain to give Mr. Putin another six-year term in the Kremlin.

While Mr. Putin faces only token opposition after having eliminated Navalny and any other serious rival, Navalny supporters say they will honor a protest tactic he conceived with a “Noon Against Putin” protest Sunday at polling stations across the country.

Characteristic of Navalny’s own maverick political career, the protest is a clever workaround to overcome Russia’s laws on public demonstrations.

While not carrying signs or shouting slogans, the protesters planned to show up en masse at precisely noon on Sunday to vote, with videos already showing huge throngs of voters arriving at the designated time at polling stations in Moscow and other cities, according to Radio  Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Noon Against Putin displays were even seen in parts of occupied and annexed Ukraine that are voting in Russian presidential elections for the first time.

Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow and now a standard-bearer for the anti-Putin movement abroad, endorsed the idea of using her late husband’s protest method in a video over the weekend.

“It is a very simple and safe action. It can’t be banned,” she said. “It will help millions of people to see their like-minded allies and to realize that we are not alone, we’re surrounded by people who are also against the war, against corruption and against lawlessness.”

Russian election officials are not happy, even as state media carried reports that turnout was already 65% with several hours to go in the vote Sunday.

The Moscow prosecutor’s office said it was prepared to criminally prosecute those who tried to undercut the vote, including any social media account “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow in order to violate electoral legislation.”

There were sporadic signs of protest against Mr. Putin already in the voting Friday and Saturday, including voters who have spoiled their ballots using green dye and isolated cases of vandalism of voting stations.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now a security adviser to Mr. Putin, angrily denounced the protests and warned that the “degenerates” behind the effort “should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years” in jail.

Mr. Putin and his aides have also accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt the vote with a string of cross-border strikes and drone attacks in recent days, including several successful hits on Russian oil and gas refineries.

Igor Lapunov, head of security for the tech firm Rostelecom, claimed to the Russian official TASS news agency Saturday that the country had “thwarted” more than 90,000 cyberattacks aimed at subverting the vote. He said the attacks appeared to come mainly from Ukraine, Western Europe and North America.

“Judging by the professionalism of cyberattacks, we can understand that professional, special groups are at work,” Mr. Lapunov said.