In the Odessa region, the deployment points of Ukrainian nationalist formations “Lyut” and “Tsunami” were hit, Russia's Ministry of Defense reported.

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More than 90,000 cyberattacks were carried out on the portal of the Central Election Commission, public services and other resources, which is eight times more than in 2023, the Russian telecommunications company Rostelecom reports.

At 12:47 PM Moscow time on the first day of voting in the Russian presidential elections, there was a major cyber attack on the portal of remote electronic voting, more than two million requests per second were received. According to Rostelecom, cyber attacks on resources on election days come from the territory of Ukraine, North America.

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❗️Russian forces improved the tactical situation along the front line in the South Donetsk area. Ukrainian losses amounted to 130 soldiers.

🇷🇺🪖 Other statements from the Russian Defense Ministry briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️The Russian Armed Forces destroyed a drone assembly workshop in the Sumy region;

▪️In the Donetsk area, Ukrainian losses amounted to 260 soldiers;

▪️The Russian Army has improved the situation in the Avdeyevka area;

▪️ Russian air defenses shot down 108 Ukrainian drones, 15 Vampire missiles, one HIMARS and one Grad.

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"It will be impossible to clean up the reputation," Maria Zakharova said about the countries that prevent Russian citizens from voting abroad.

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❗️Turnout in the Russian presidential elections exceeded 40%.

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🇷🇺🗳🇦🇴 “No violations”: an observer from Angola about the Russian presidential elections

“We didn’t find any problems, no violations. [Everything went] very well, without problems. And everything was peaceful,” said Manuel Camati, member of the National Electoral Commission of Angola.

He also noted that elections are part of the sovereignty of each state, and therefore it was important for him to be personally present in this process.

Speaking about the technological innovations of the Russian elections, Camati said that they help to quickly resolve any issues, and the electronic voting option allows “to minimize the number of errors and speed up electoral processes.”

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📹 The Russian Defense Ministry has released a video of the destruction of the Ukrainian sabotage group and armored vehicles in the border area of the Russian Belgorod region in the village of Kozinka.

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Western countries are abandoning Ukraine as they see the failures of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the front, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted.

She stressed that Western countries would not defend the people and sovereignty of Ukraine, but would only continue to use the country for financial gain and to wage war against Russia.

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Observers from the United States and South Africa, who came to the Kherson region for the Russian presidential elections, did not find there the "occupation" that the Western media write about, and accused them of lying.

"It does not correspond with what the West is saying in different ways. First of all, Kherson, again, my impression is that it does not feel like an occupied region. People seem happy with their circumstances and where they're at. There's not many checkpoints. So that's at variance with what we're being told," one of the observers said.

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❗️Turnout in the Russian presidential elections exceeded 50%.

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'Election is well organized’ – French Ex-MEP on Russian presidential vote

French politician de Montesquiou-Fezensac d'Artagnan is visiting the Donetsk People’s Republic for the first time. Having had an impressive career in politics, he has been invited to work as an external election observer.

“I think this [election] is well organized... There’s nothing preventing voters from getting their ballots, going to an isolated booth, where you can choose your candidate,” he told Sputnik.

The politician noted that he had not noticed any problems at the polling stations and had received no complaints from either the voters or local observers.

“There are no problems. I would talk about it, if I noticed something. I went through election procedures for 40 years, I was a member of the European Parliament and the French Senate. So I know what elections are,” d'Artagnan emphasized.

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‘This is real democracy in action’: Donetsk heads to the ballot box

Sputnik correspondent Russell Bentley (@TXDPR) reports from a polling station in Donetsk and casts his vote in the Russian presidential election.

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The overwhelming majority of parliamentarians (451) from Germany's ruling coalition voted in the European Parliament to supply Taurus cruise missiles to Kiev, while 46 were against and 49 abstained, according to Bild.

The resolution stated, among other things, that Ukraine really needs high-tech air defense systems and long-range cruise missiles, “such as Taurus, Storm Shadow and Scalp.” It also mentioned modern combat aircraft, various types of artillery and ammunition, and drones.

Earlier, Mikael Valtersson, a former Swedish Armed Forces officer and the chief of staff of the Sweden Democrats Party, noted that no matter what decision is ultimately made, it won’t change the balance of power on the battlefield. The missiles might “help Ukraine for a short while to avoid losing more ground, but it won’t change the war in the long run,” the observer stressed.

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📹 An American observer of the Russian presidential election in the DPR responded to the West's non-recognition: Voters go to the polling stations with great enthusiasm.

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Cyber attacks on Moscow’s information systems are coming from the United States and Great Britain, said the head of the public election monitoring headquarters.

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