Thousands of Russians have defied Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, by turning up at polling stations in a flash mob protest that has wrongfooted the Kremlin.

Photographs from across Russia showed queues snaking out of polling stations in possibly the biggest opposition demonstration in Russia since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine.

People smiled as they stood in queues for the midday demonstration called by exiled opposition leaders. Some secretly carried photos of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in a Russian prison last month.

One flash mob participant described his relief at seeing thousands of people standing up to the Kremlin. Another said he had been moved to tears by the silent protests.

When Boris Nadezhdin, an anti-war candidate disqualified by the Kremlin in the run-up to this week’s presidential election, arrived to vote at a polling station in Moscow, he was cheered.

Shortly after the protest, Telegram, the social messaging channel, quickly filled up with photographs of spoiled ballot papers scrawled with pro-Ukraine and anti-war slogans.

“Don’t steal my voice, don’t steal our future,” said one spoiled ballot paper. Another said: “Free all political prisoners. Peace in Ukraine.”

Yulia Navalnaya, Mr Navalny’s widow, called for the protest because it is a relatively safe way of demonstrating against the Kremlin.

Although the Kremlin responded by promising to imprison people taking part in it for up to five years, OVD-Info, a Russian human rights group, said that only 43 people had been detained at polling stations, mainly in the cities of Kazan, Moscow and St Petersburg.

Analysts have said that the flash mob, and the dozens of attacks on ballot boxes that have occurred since voting opened on Friday, were rare shows of defiance by ordinary Russians.

John Foreman, a Russia analyst and a former British Defence Attache in Moscow, said: “I was sceptical about the impact of the idea of a midday protest. 

“I’m finding the long queues in Russian cities, despite the threats from the authorities, very moving.”

Putin had wanted to use the election as a show of support for his war in Ukraine. The Kremlin has deployed vote-fixing tactics to push up his share of the vote to an expected 80 per cent, on a turnout of more than 70 per cent.

These tactics have included pressuring state workers to vote and rolling out easy-to-manipulate electronic voting.

Three days of voting in Russia ends on Sunday evening. Early results are expected by 9pm (6pm UK time).