Nikolay Bulaev, deputy chairman of the Russian Central Election Commission, stated on Saturday that as of Moscow time (13:20 GMT), voter turnout now stands at 51.77% across the nation in the presidential election.

The voting will span three days from March 15 until March 17, and this will mark the first Russian presidential election since the 2020 constitutional reform. The reform had imposed a limit of two terms for any president. This also nullified Putin's former terms, enabling him to run again.

In this election, four candidates vie for the six-year presidential term. Putin, running independently, competes against Leonid Slutsky of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), Nikolay Kharitonov of the Communist Party, and Vladislav Davankov representing the New People party.

During a Central Election Commission meeting, Bualev stated that this includes remote electronic voting. 

The Moscow City Election Commission has received no complaints about irregularities influencing the process of voting in the Russian capital's presidential election, according to Chairwoman Olga Kirillova, who adds that the campaign is proceeding "quite peacefully."

Kirillova detailed that as of 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, over 3.9 million people had voted in Moscow's presidential election.

"A total of 3,910,263 ballots were issued, of which 2,985,178 [people] voted remotely, and 928,085 by using a paper ballot," she said in a statement.

Meanwhile, as of 5:30 p.m., more than 4 million individuals had voted using the remote electronic voting platform, according to statistics posted on the system's website.

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According to the statistics, a total of 4,190,952 ballots were provided for remote electronic voting, with 4,103,807 votes approved, accounting for 86% of the total number of voters registered on the platform.

90K+ cyberattacks from Ukraine, N. America on elections portal: Russia

The head of Solar Group, a subsidiary of Rostelecom, Igor Lyapunov, revealed today that on the first day of the Russian elections, more than 90,000 cyber attacks targeted the elections portals originating from Ukraine and North America. 

Lyapunov stated that such an unprecedented number of cyber attacks indicates that the collective West is fighting against Russia adding that attacks originated from "Ukraine and other locations in Western Europe as well as North America."

He added that an unprecedented major cyber attack took place yesterday at 12:47 Moscow time targeting the electronic voting platform peaking at more than 2.5 million clicks per second, a load that has caused a delay in the portal. 

Earlier today, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova revealed that Washington is using hackers and compiled a package of misleading information to be published on the eve and during the election day to influence the voting process in the Russian presidential elections.

Coordinated vandalism acts hit Russian electoral polls

A series of sabotage incidents has hit the Russian electoral polls, propelling the government to label it an act of terrorism and prompting law enforcement interference. 

With the kick-off of the Russian elections on Friday, incidents like pouring green dye over ballots and arson washed over polling stations. Law enforcement intervened and captured the offenders, who face up to five years in prison.

Maxim Grigoriev, co-chair of the Coordination Council for Public Control over Voting dubbed the incidents as intimidation tactics to discourage voters from casting their votes, saying “This is not just an attempt to obstruct the elections, but an act of terrorism. I urge law enforcement agencies to approach this with the appropriate article of the criminal code since people could have been injured as a result of these actions.”

Although some ballots had been spoiled in the process, the damage remained minimal and would not affect the final results, Grigoriev assured.