MOSCOW, Russia — A steady stream of voters arrived at a polling station in the heart of Russia’s capital on this crisp, sunny Friday morning to cast their votes in a three-day presidential election.
With the winner in no doubt, the Kremlin will instead be looking to turnout as a measure of public support for Vladimir Putin’s extended rule across this vast country.
Muscovites began filing into this school-turned-voting site as soon as the doors opened at 8 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET). At the entrance stood a large banner emblazoned with the letter “V” in the colors of the Russian flag and stating the dates of this Friday-Sunday election.
Authorities have used the Latin letters “V” and “Z” as unofficial symbols for its war in Ukraine, which has entered its third year with the country’s military advancing on the battlefield.
The Kremlin’s expanded control over Russian life means there is no true opposition to Putin, with the three other men on the ballot representing parties loyal to Putin who only campaigned sparingly.
Still, some voters said they did not need an alternative.
Nina Kisileva, 90, told NBC News as she exited the station that she came out early to vote for another six years of Putin. “Because I trust him. I really trust him,” Kisileva said, adding that she has lived through a slew of Soviet leaders, including Josef Stalin. “I remember when Stalin died, his funeral in 1953, I remember it well. And now I trust only Putin,” she said.
Svetlana Kulikova said she voted at the station electronically, an option for the first time this year.
Like Kisileva, she said she also voted for Putin. “We live well, we are satisfied with everything and, well, we are very satisfied with our president,” Kulikova, 59, said.
Denis Babushkin, who works in highway construction, said that Putin was the only “adequate” candidate out of the four, so he voted for him. “He is the only person who has made others respect Russia as a country recently,” said Babushkin, 39. While he said he was not happy about everything going on in the country, he said the positives still outweigh the negatives.
Gauging public opinion has become nearly impossible since the beginning of the war, as many people fear speaking out freely amid a crackdown on dissent. But Putin’s approval rating remains high at 86%, according to the independent pollster Levada Center.
NBC News also saw a group of 15 municipal workers come in as an organized group to vote and leave together. Russian authorities have in the past faced accusations of making state employees take part in elections.
There is not much suspense on this occasion, since two candidates with anti-war views have been barred from running, and there is little independent monitoring of the vote process.
But a big turnout would be seen as legitimizing the war and would help to solidify the notion that the country is united around its president, already the longest serving Kremlin leader since Stalin. In 2018, 67% of the eligible voters came out to vote, and the Kremlin will want to boast it has topped that number come Monday.
On the eve of the election, Putin, 71, appealed to feelings of patriotism and duty in a special video message, as he encouraged people to vote and demonstrate unity.
The Kremlin’s efforts to encourage turnout were evident across Russia on Friday, with videos showing celebrities performing inside polling stations and one region even allowing the public to take photos with a cardboard cutout of Tucker Carlson, the conservative commentator who recently interviewed Putin and has become a favored American personality here.
But Russian state media also reported on some incidents of disruption, including a woman who poured color dye into a ballot box in Moscow, prompting a criminal investigation, a man who tried to light a firecracker at a polling station in the Ural mountain region of Chelyabinsk, and a woman who tried to set a ballot box on fire with a Molotov cocktail in the Khanty-Mansi region of Siberia.
The country’s opposition, decimated by a crackdown and the death of its leader Alexei Navalny, has been split on how Russians should treat the election. Some have called for a boycott; others have urged people to spoil their ballots or vote for any candidate other than Putin.
The most likely protest will center on a call for Russians to show up en masse at polling stations at noon on Sunday in all of the country’s 11 time zones, in a silent display of their discontent.
Some voters at the Moscow polling station told NBC News they knew about the call for this protest.
Elena, who did not want her last name revealed, said she knew…
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