By Team Observers

This video, filmed on a mobile phone, was originally posted on www.smena.info, a site hosted by Smena, a relatively unknown Russian opposition group. It has since been snapped up by numerous television chains. It shows a woman stuffing a ballot box with voting papers at a polling centre. In the background, a man’s voice asks her, in Russian, to “turn over the ballot slip”. The rest is inaudible. At the end of the film, however, we hear the person who’s filming ask a guard: “Do you have any pistols? Which model?” The video is dated Dec. 2, Russia's parliamentary election day. But the tape date, and its authenticity, are yet to be verified. Our regional editor, Maria Antonova, and our observer, Anastasiya Lebedev, will keep us updated.