President Vladimir Putin won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russia's election, cementing his tight grip on power and sending a message to the West that its leaders will have to reckon with an emboldened Russia for many more years. 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%. First official results indicated the polls were accurate. 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 prioritize resolving tasks associated with what he called Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine and would strengthen the Russian military.
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. War has hung over the three-day election, with Ukraine repeatedly attacking oil refineries in Russia, shelling Russian regions, and seeking to pierce Russian borders with proxy forces. Putin said Russia might need to create a buffer zone inside Ukraine to prevent such attacks in the future.
Nationwide turnout was 74.22% at 1800 GMT when polls closed, surpassing 2018 levels of 67.5%. 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.
The West casts Putin as an autocrat and a killer. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday 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 U.S. domestic politics ahead of the November presidential election.
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