Putin wins six-year term in landslide Russia election

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russia’s election on Sunday, cementing his already tight grip on power in a victory he said showed Moscow had been right to stand up to the West and send its troops into Ukraine.

Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel who first rose to power in 1999, made it clear that the result should send a message to the West that its leaders will have to reckon with an emboldened Russia, whether in war or in peace, for many more years to come.

The outcome means Putin, 71, is set to embark on a new six-year term that will see him overtake Josef Stalin and become Russia’s longest-serving leader for more than 200 years if he completes it.

Putin won 87.8% of the vote, the highest ever result in Russia’s post-Soviet history, according to an exit poll by pollster the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM).

The Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) put Putin on 87%.  Nationwide turnout was 74.22% when polls closed, election officials said, surpassing 2018 levels of 67.5%.

The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and other nations have said the vote was neither free nor fair due to the imprisonment of political opponents and censorship.

Communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov finished second with just under 4%, newcomer Vladislav Davankov third, and ultra-nationalist Leonid Slutsky fourth, partial results suggested.

Putin told supporters in a victory speech in Moscow that he would prioritise resolving tasks associated with what he called Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine and would strengthen the Russian military.

“We have many tasks ahead. But when we are consolidated – no matter who wants to intimidate us, suppress us – nobody has ever succeeded in history, they have not succeeded now, and they will not succeed ever in the future,” said Putin.

Supporters chanted “Putin, Putin, Putin” when he appeared on stage and “Russia, Russia, Russia” after he had delivered his acceptance speech.

Inspired by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month, thousands of opponents protested at noon against Putin at polling stations inside Russia and abroad.

Putin told reporters he regarded Russia’s election as democratic and said the Navalny-inspired protest against him had had no effect on the election’s outcome.

In his first comments on his death, he also said that Navalny’s passing had been a “sad event” and confirmed that he had been ready to do a prisoner swap involving the opposition politician.

The Russian election comes just over two years since Putin triggered the deadliest European conflict since World War Two by ordering the invasion of Ukraine.

While Putin’s re-election was not in doubt given his control over Russia and the absence of any real challengers, the former KGB spy had wanted to show he had the overwhelming support of Russians.

There was no independent tally of how many of Russia’s 114 million voters took part in the opposition demonstrations, amid tight security involving tens of thousands of police and security officials. At least 74 people were arrested on Sunday across Russia, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors crackdowns on dissent.

Over the previous two days, there were scattered incidents of protest as some Russians set fire to voting booths or poured green dye into ballot boxes. Opponents posted some pictures of ballots spoiled with slogans insulting Putin.

Navalny’s death has left the opposition deprived of its most formidable leader, and other major opposition figures are abroad, in jail or dead.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Putin wanted to rule forever and that the vote had been illegitimate.

Putin portrays the war as part of a centuries-old battle with a declining West that he says humiliated Russia after the Cold War by encroaching on Moscow’s sphere of influence.

Russia’s election comes at what Western spy chiefs say is a crossroads for the Ukraine war and the wider West. Support for Ukraine is tangled in US domestic politics ahead of the November presidential election.