Putin re-elected Russia’s President for another 6 years

With nearly all of the votes counted in Russia’s presidential election, the state-run Russia Public Opinion Research Center published an exit poll that showed Vladimir Putin with 76.6% of the vote.

Putin’s most serious foe, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was barred from the race.

He was ejected from the 2012 presidential race at the last minute – a move he said was politically motivated after he came out in support of anti-Putin protesters.

Putin’s victory will take his political dominance of Russian Federation to almost a quarter of a century until 2024, the longest rule since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, by which time Putin will be 71.

Vladimir Putin has said he is open to “constructive” dialogue with other states after being re-elected president of Russian Federation with an increased majority.

The German statement aside, he said he was “heartened” by European Union support so far, adding: “There isn’t a single country around the table here [in Brussels] that hasn’t been affected in recent times by some form of malign or disruptive Russian behaviour”. Navalny has called for boycotting the vote.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which requested 420 short-term observers to monitor polling stations, voting, ballot counts and results, will issue a final report of the entire electoral process in about eight weeks.

Putin, who’s also been accused of cyber-attacks and election meddling, including in the 2016 U.S. presidential vote, secured the results despite opposition calls for a boycott.

At odds with the West over Syria, Ukraine, allegations of Russian election meddling and cyber attacks and the poisoning in Britain of a former Russian spy and his daughter, relations between Moscow and the West are at a post Cold War low.

There was little fanfare in the campaign period and Russian news was dominated by developments in political crises between Russia and Western powers.

The longer-term question is whether Putin will now soften his anti-Western rhetoric. The 65-year-old leader responded to a reporter: “It’s a bit ridiculous, let’s do the math”.

Sergei Klimov, a 32-year-old resident of Yekaterinburg, said he was forced to go to vote but he ended up spoiling his ballot.

This has led many to suggest that her campaign is a bid to give the polls a veneer of competition and split the opposition vote. “I respect him for the foreign policy, otherwise Russian Federation would perish”.

In his conversation with Mr Macron, Mr Putin described the nerve agent allegation as “unsubstantiated” and said Russian Federation was willing to hold a joint investigation, the Kremlin said. “I would very much like everyone around the world to hear the ringing of the Kremlin clock bells every day and for everyone to know the Russian language very well”, he said. “But as far as the economy is concerned, everything is bad”, the 40-year-old told AFP. Putin’s United Russia Party set itself the goal of a “70/70 election” – a 70 percent turnout and at least a 70 percent majority.

Authorities were also appealing to patriotic feelings by holding the vote on the anniversary of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

That conflict has since claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Russian citizens living in the country’s easternmost regions of Kamchatka and Chukotka, began casting ballots to vote for the next president on Sunday.

Ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky took 5.66 per cent, former reality TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak was on 1.67 per cent, while veteran liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky received just over one per cent of the vote.

Overall turnout is expected to be between 63% and 67%, according to official pollsters.

In Moscow, first-time voters were being given free tickets for pop concerts, and health authorities were offering free cancer screenings at selected polling stations.

Early voting has already taken place in some remote areas, where local election commissions bring ballot boxes by helicopter and snowmobile. At the end of his second term in 2008 he handed power to his protege Dmitry Medvedev.

“The Prime Minister also stated that he looked forward to welcoming President Putin in India for the annual summit later this year”, it added.

The run-up to Russia’s last presidential election in 2012 was marked by huge protests across the country against Putin’s return as head of state.