Vladimir Putin has won the Russian presidential election with a landslide, securing his reign for six more years despite his invasion of Ukraine.
According to the Russian electoral committee, the early results indicated that the Russian President was on course to be reelected, with a record 88% of the votes and a turnout of over 70%, after 25% of returns had been counted.
The result — which included the totals of five Ukrainian regions occupied and ruled by Russia — had been a foregone outcome after the Kremlin banned all criticism Putin, or the war, and barred any opposition candidates.
Putin spoke with reporters and thanked volunteers at the headquarters of his campaign near the Kremlin as the results were announced. He said that “all the plans we created to develop Russia would be implemented and their goals will be achieved.” “We’ve come up with grandiose ideas and will do all we can to implement them.”
Putin said that the large turnout was proof of his overwhelming support from the public. Putin stated that the main challenges for his next six-year tenure were “achieving the objectives of the special operations [in Ukraine]” and “strengthening our defence capability and armed forces”.
Putin mused on a possible Russian-NATO military conflict, saying it would be “one small step away from a Third World War” after France’s Emmanuel Macron suggested sending troops to Ukraine.
“Everything in the modern age is possible” . . ] “I don’t believe anyone is really interested in this,” he said.
Putin said that he is more legitimate than Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, who had postponed the elections originally scheduled to take place this year due to martial law. He said, “We will consider who we want to talk with” about ending the conflict. “We support peace talks, but not just because the enemy has run out of ammunition.”
Zelenskyy, who wrote on X before Putin’s remarks, said: “The Russian dictator simulates another election.” Everybody knows that this number is a’simulating election. . . Has become addicted to the power and will do anything to continue to rule. . . This imitation of an election is not legitimate and cannot be.
Putin, the longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin has maintained his power despite attempts by western countries to impose harsh sanctions against Moscow over the invasion in Ukraine. The Russian army has taken the initiative in the face of outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian troops, while the Russian economy is recovering thanks to an increase in military spending during the war and financial support from other countries like China.
Putin has no opponents after Alexei Navalny , his most prominent rival, , died in a remote Arctic colony last week. Navalny’s supporters and family have been forced to exile, and they blamed Putin for the death of their leader. The Kremlin has denied this allegation.
Putin denied that Russia murdered Navalny when asked about him on Sunday evening.
“In regards to Mr Navalny: yes, he has left this earth, and it’s a tragic incident. There have been many other cases where people who were incarcerated left this world. This hasn’t happened in the US. Putin confirmed that it has happened more than once.
Putin said that he agreed to a proposal informally to exchange Navalny for a prisoner not long before his death. “But, unfortunately, it happened. I agreed to swap him with one condition: he won’t return. “But such is life.”
In exile or in prison, opposition leaders urged their supporters to vote against Putin at noon on the Sunday to honor Navalny. According to social media footage, hundreds of people responded to the call.
Danil, an attorney for corporate clients who lives in the northern part of Moscow, said, “My wife, friend and I went to the voting station around 12.” He said that a “visible queue” of people from all age groups began to form at noon.
“I was expecting problems and that the authorities would shut down the station at 12 noon. “There was nothing unusual, except the line,” Danil said.
Vera, an 18-year-old woman from Moscow, came to vote in the midday hours to express her opposition to Putin, and to “show that I don’t support everything going on in this country”.
Even longer queues formed abroad in cities where there are large Russian emigrant populations, including Dubai, Almaty, and Berlin, when Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya waited to vote.
OVD Info, an independent rights monitor, reported that Russian police arrested more than 65 people for a variety of acts, including wearing a T shirt with Navalny’s name and trying to insert a picture of him in the ballot box.
Officials tried to rationalize the protests. The authorities in Novosibirsk – the largest city in Siberia – claimed that repair work was to blame for the long queues at noon.
Golos, an independent election monitor whose co-chair Grigory Mekonyants served a prison sentence last year, claimed that authorities also forced public sector workers to vote early or force them to cast their votes online.
The three members of parliament who were permitted to vote alongside Putin are in favor of the war but have not criticised the president.