MOSCOW, March 18. /TASS/. Ukrainian forces launched almost 70 drones to attack the Zaporozhye Region during the Russian presidential election, said Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the We are Together with Russia group.
"There were 67 drones that reached far enough. More of them were forced to land, made to change course and so on. They sent out everything they had. Even the Strizh models (the Ukrainian Tu-141 multi-purpose drone code-named Strizh - TASS) were up in the air. It’s been a while since Strizh types were used. They are old, Soviet-made. It’s been at least 34 years since the end of their production. They have begun to use new munitions. It hard to call them cluster munitions. They are more like sub-cluster munitions. <...> They are strewing a lot of them," he said on the Solovyov Live program on Rossiya-1 television.
Rogov said that more than 20 reserve polling stations had been set up in the region, some of them with the help of local residents. According to the politician, "some residents even offered their homes for holding the election."
Russia held a presidential election from March 15-17. This is the first such election where votes could be cast for three days and be submitted online remotely. The e-voting system was available in about one-third of Russian regions. With 100% of ballots counted, incumbent President Vladimir Putin collected 87.28% of the vote, according to data from the Russian Election Commission.