At least 13 people were arrested today, first day of holding the presidential elections in Russiaon charges of causing damage or incendiary attacks against polling stations, according to authorities.

The motives of the attacks have not been made clear and it has not been established whether they are protest actions against the government.

The NGO OVD-Info, an independent Russian media organization for human rights, has warned of possible phone scams, common in Russia, in which perpetrators will promise financial compensation to those who launch attacks on polling stations.

The head of the electoral commission, Ela Pamfilova, said that these people who do the phone scams are acting with money promised to them by “fraudsters from abroad”.

In St. Petersburg, a young woman threw a Molotov cocktail at the entrance to a polling station at a school, causing no casualties, according to a local official. He was then arrested, according to local media outlet Fontanka.

In Moscow, a woman was arrested after “setting fire” to an election screen, Ria Novosti news agency reported. A video published by Baza media shows flames in the area, which were quickly extinguished.

Also in Moscow, a 20-year-old man was arrested after spraying ballots inside ballot boxes with a “pigmented liquid,” the Russian Interior Ministry said in a statement.

According to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, investigations have been launched for “obstructing the exercise of electoral rights or the work of electoral commissions”, an offense which, according to the authorities, is punishable by “up to 5 years” in prison.

A man near the Russian capital, a woman in Novosibirsk (Siberia), as well as four other people in the provinces of Voronezh (southwest), Rostov and Karachay-Cherkessia in the Russian Caucasus were also arrested for throwing dye into a ballot box, authorities said. . Similar incidents occurred in Volgograd (southwest) and annexed Crimea.

Two other people were arrested in the country for trying to set fire to a ballot box using a Molotov cocktail and trying to light a firecracker inside a polling station.

Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has accused Kiev of conducting phone fraud campaigns targeting mostly elderly and vulnerable people. These campaigns, according to Moscow, have prompted dozens of people to attack official buildings or offices.