Opposition figure Alexei Navalny hails success of tactical voting campaign

Pro-Kremlin candidates have suffered losses in local elections in Moscow as Vladimir Putin’s biggest critic hailed the success of his campaign to encourage strategic voting.

The election was closely watched by both sides following a summer of protests in the Russian capital against the Kremlin’s refusal to allow candidates allied with opposition leader Alexei Navalny on to the ballot.

Attention is on Moscow vote after arrests of would-be opposition candidates

Russians have gone to the polls in local elections after weeks of opposition protests that led to the biggest police crackdown on dissent in nearly a decade.

Although municipal and regional polls were held across the vast country, most attention has been focused on the vote in Moscow, where independent would-be candidates and their supporters have been arrested and jailed and large protests were held over the summer.