Ukraine strikes Russian city, refinery amid presidential vote

A Ukrainian missile attack killed two people in western Russia and a separate drone strike set an oil refinery ablaze on Saturday, the second day of an election that President Vladimir Putin has accused Kyiv of trying to disrupt.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, reported the murders of a man and a woman. Cross-border attacks from Ukraine have grown commonplace.

Dmitry Azarov, governor of the Samara area 850 kilometers (530 miles) southeast of Moscow and near the Ukrainian border, claimed the Syzran refinery was on fire, but an attack on a second plant was averted.

Ukraine has launched multiple strikes on Russian refineries this week. Russia launched its worst strike in weeks on Friday, striking a residential neighborhood in Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 70.

The Ukraine conflict has placed a pall over voting in a three-day presidential election that will almost certainly give Putin another six years in power.

He controls Russia’s political landscape at the age of 71, having been president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, and none of the other three contenders on the ballot pose a realistic challenge.

His most vocal detractors are in prison or have fled abroad, causing the opposition to declare the election a fraud. Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most well-known opposition figure, died in an Arctic jail colony last month, and his followers accuse Putin of having him killed. The Kremlin denied it, and his death certificate stated that he died from natural reasons.

The Kremlin hopes for a large turnout to demonstrate that the country stands united behind Putin.

The overall turnout was over 38% on the morning of day two. Some of the highest rates, approaching 70%, were reported in the Belgorod region, where the missile strike happened, and in Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine, where Kyiv claims voting is illegal and void.

Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, announced on Saturday that it was undergoing a widespread denial of service attack – a type of malware aimed at crippling online traffic – and has suspended non-essential services to combat it.

Friday’s vote featured a smattering of protests, including the pouring of colored liquid into ballot boxes and the tossing of a Molotov bomb at a polling station in Putin’s home town, as well as reported cyber attacks.