Russia: Hey, That Scottish Vote Was a Little Fishy

Russia, the world's defender of territorial sovereignty, thinks pro-independence Scottish voters might have gotten robbed in yesterday's vote. Moscow sent four official observers to watch the votes being counted in Edinburgh, and they don't think things were up to snuff, reports the Huffington Post UK. Among the problems: The votes were counted in a "cavernous" airplane hangar, making it impossible to keep a close watch over the people doing the actual counting, complains observer Igor Borisov. "Even if you want to, it's impossible to tell what's happening," he says. "It's also unclear where the boxes with ballot papers come from."

Bottom line: Britain and Scotland had not "fully met" the requirements for a legit referendum, he says. The Guardian suspects that the Kremlin wanted to give the West a return jab over complaints about Russian elections. Plus, it's no secret that Vladimir Putin was rooting for the "yes" votes to prevail, as they did in Crimea. A broadcaster on the state-run RT channel went one better than Borisov, expressing skepticism about Scotland's turnout of near 90%: "It is normally the sort of turnout you would expect in North Korea." (More Russia stories.)