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In an election without suspense and without genuine competition, Vladimir Putin cruised to another six-year term Sunday as president of Russia, scoring an overwhelming victory after his most serious rivals were either sidelined, exiled or dead.
Central Election Commission officials in Moscow said Mr. Putin, who has dominated the Russian political landscape for a quarter century, had received just under 88% of the votes, with three-fifths of the country’s precincts having reported.
The U.S., Western European governments and Ukraine all criticized what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called an “imitation” of a democratic election in Russia. The White House said the Russian vote was “obviously not free, nor fair.”
Still, the vote gives Mr. Putin some bragging rights and grounds to argue that his war of choice in Ukraine still has popular support at home. Russia’s economy has also held up surprisingly well in the face of Western and international sanctions related to the war in Ukraine.
The Russian vote for the first time included districts in occupied Ukraine that Moscow unilaterally annexed after the February 2022 invasion.
Russian officials claimed turnout nationally reached nearly 75%, up nearly 9 percentage points from the last vote in 2018. Security officials and police were out in force on the streets as the votes were being cast, according to local news reports.
Russian officials also said the election came off smoothly despite what they said were attempts by Western governments and the Western media to undermine the vote. The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests, said 80 people were arrested in 20 cities across Russia on Sunday, The Associated Press reported.
Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Ivanov told a briefing in Moscow late Sunday that “it’s already safe to say that our opponents have failed to undermine the Russian presidential election for our fellow citizens abroad and discourage them from exercising their constitutional right to choose the path forward for our country.
Mr. Putin addressed chanting supporters just as the polls were closing Sunday night in Moscow, telling them the landslide would allow the country to come together. He told reporters the first priority of his new term would be to strengthen the country’s military and prosecute the war in Ukraine more effectively.
The victory also puts Mr. Putin, 71, on course to surpass Soviet leader Josef Stalin as Russia’s longest-serving ruler since the days of the czars.
The final day of a three-day election across 11 time zones for Mr. Putin came with one final shot across the bow, fired from the grave.
Although open protests were banned, many Russians signaled their unhappiness by seizing on an idea proposed by Alexei Navalny, the corruption-fighting opposition leader who died under mysterious circumstances in an Arctic prison just a month ago.
Mr. Navalny’s “Noon Against Putin” protest Sunday called for crowds to descend on local polling places at noon local time to vote, leading to massive lines and milling crowds that looked to all the world like a protest.
Videos posted online showed sizable throngs of voters showing up at the designated time at polling stations in Moscow and other cities, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Noon Against Putin displays were seen in parts of occupied and annexed Ukraine voting in Russian presidential elections for the first time.
Russian election officials were not happy, even as state media carried reports that turnout was already 65% with several hours to go in the vote.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office said it was prepared to criminally prosecute those who tried to undercut the vote, including any social media account “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”
Sporadic signs of protest against Mr. Putin were seen, including by voters spoiling their ballots using green dye and isolated cases of vandalism of voting stations.
Mr. Putin and his aides have also accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt the vote with a string of cross-border strikes and drone attacks, including several successful hits on Russian oil and gas refineries.
Igor Lapunov, head of security for the tech firm Rostelecom, told the Russian official Tass news agency Saturday that the country had “thwarted” more than 90,000 cyberattacks looking to subvert the vote. He said the attacks appeared to come mainly from Ukraine, Western Europe and North America.
“Judging by the professionalism of cyberattacks, we can understand that professional, special groups are at work,” he said.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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