"The person who sent troops to Chechnya, who destroyed everything around us and caused thousands of civilians to die - how could we vote for him?" said 38-year-old Grozny resident Saikhan Taramov. "I firmly believe that the presidential elections were 100 percent forged in Chechnya."

"We returned to Grozny [from Ingushetia] just days before the elections. Everything was destroyed. Our home was in ruins. We lost everything," Taramov said. "On election day we were told that humanitarian aid would be distributed at the polling station, so early in the morning everyone - including my family - went to the polling station at City Hall and waited for a long time. We were talking amongst ourselves. Hardly anyone was thinking about the elections - people said they were absurd. We were all waiting for the humanitarian aid because we wanted to eat."

Ikhvan Kharikhanov, a resident of Grozny's Zavodskoi district, said he was not even given the chance to cast a ballot.

"When after lunch I came to our polling station, I found out there were no spare ballots. They had already been cast for us by the commission. I guess they all were signed for Putin," said Kharikhanov.

"Before the elections those who came back to Grozny from [refugee camps in] Ingushetia were well accepted," Kharikhanov added. "We were registered, given medical and humanitarian aid. But those who tried to come back after the elections experienced problems. They were not welcomed at all."

According to Salman Vakhayev, only 0.01 percent of the people living in his Grozny suburb supported Putin.

"There was next to no one at the polling station, and those who did come did not vote for Putin," Vakhayev said, adding that he knew no one who voted for the acting president. "I think that 50 percent of the ballots were cast by the soldiers who were ordered by their commanders to vote for Putin. Even before the elections we understood that this president was not to be elected - he had already been appointed."