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Added on the 29/03/2022 23:15:00 - Copyright : France 24 EN
People respond to a call from opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya to turn up at polling stations at midday Moscow time (0900 GMT) in a form of protest that attempts to overwhelm them. Before his death in an Arctic prison last month, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who galvanised mass anti-Putin rallies, had urged Russians to protest on March 17. The polling station is where opposition leader Alexei Navalny was registered. IMAGES
Sweden joining NATO shows Russian President Vladimir Putin "failed" in his Ukrainian war strategy of weakening the alliance, its chief Jens Stoltenberg says. The Kremlin's invasion not only prompted formerly non-aligned nations Sweden and Finland to come under NATO's defence umbrella, but now "Ukraine is closer to NATO membership than ever before," Stoltenberg adds. SOUNDBITE
US President Joe Biden says during his State of the Union address that Ukraine is capable of stopping Putin if the US provides Kyiv the "weapons it needs to defend itself." SOUNDBITE
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to use the Israel-Hamas war in a bid to reduce Western support for Ukraine. "Putin is very much trying to take advantage of the Hamas attack on Israel in the hopes that it will distract us... and that it will result in the United States pulling back its resources" from Ukraine, Blinken tells a Senate hearing. SOUNDBITE
Wagner's aborted mutiny shows that Moscow's war in Ukraine is splintering Russian power, and instability in the nuclear-armed power is "not a good thing", the EU's top diplomat says. SOUNDBITE
US President Joe Biden says that he would be ready to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin but only "if he is looking for a way to end the war." SOUNDBITE