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. 

Russian officials react to the attacks

Russia's ruling United Russia Party said earlier today that it was hit by a large-scale cyberattack that disrupted internet use and services. 

It added that it suspended non-essential services to combat the attack. 

Russia Foreign Ministry's Ambassador for Special Tasks Gennady Askaldovich announced that electronic voting for the presidential elections is not available abroad due to cybersecurity threats. 

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.

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Zakharova stressed that Washington put lots of effort into scaring the people by spreading its political views alongside fake information about the candidates, political parties, and figures. 

40.05% of people voted in the Russian elections

The Russian Central Election Commission announced that the participation rate in the presidential elections has reached 40.05% as of 13:32 Moscow time. 

In addition, the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media revealed that the participation rate in electronic voting in these elections has reached 82% so far as of 11:00 PM Moscow time. 

What you need to know 

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.

It is noteworthy that the Russian President Vladimir Putin has voted electronically this morning from his office in Moscow.

US assigns new mission to NGOs: Reducing Russian elections turnout

Joe Biden's administration has entrusted US NGOs with the mission of diminishing the turnout in the Russian presidential elections, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) revealed on March 11.

"According to information received by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the administration of Joe Biden sets the task for US NGOs to achieve a decrease in the turnout in the upcoming March 15-17 presidential elections in the Russian Federation," the message read.

The SVR stated that the Russian opposition's Internet resources distributed messages to Russian citizens to neglect the presidential election as per Washington's wish. 

"With the participation of leading US IT specialists, it is planned to carry out cyberattacks on the remote electronic voting system, which will make it impossible to count the votes of a significant proportion of Russian voters," the statement added.