Vladimir Putin has secured another six-year term as Russian president, exit polls showed Sunday, paving the way for the hardline former spy to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than 200 years.
Victory for the 71-year-old was never in doubt, with all his major opponents dead, in prison or exiled, and authorities waging an unrelenting crackdown on those who publicly oppose the Kremlin or its military offensive on Ukraine.
The government-run VTsIOM pollster projected that Putin had sailed to an easy victory with 87 percent of the vote after polls closed in Russia’s western-most region of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.
The three-day election was marked by a surge in deadly Ukrainian bombardments, incursions into Russian territory by pro-Kyiv sabotage groups and vandalism at polling stations.
The Kremlin had cast the election as moment for Russians to throw their weight behind the full-scale military operation in Ukraine, where voting is also being staged in Russian-controlled territories.
Kyiv and its allies slammed the vote as a sham and President Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out at Putin as a “dictator” who was “drunk from power”.
“There is no evil he will not commit to prolong his personal power,” Zelensky said in a message on social media.
Former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev meanwhile congratulated Putin on his “splendid victory” long before the final results were due to be announced.
And state-run television praised how Russians and rallied with “colossal support for the president” as well as the “unbelievable consolidation” of the country behind its leader.
