Putin claims landslide Russian election victory
VLADIMIR Putin has claimed a landslide victory in Russia’s presidential vote, as thousands in the country and around the world protested against his deepening dictatorship, the war in Ukraine and a stage-managed election that could have only one winner.
In a vote denounced by the United States as “obviously not free nor fair”, Putin won 87% of the vote, according to exit polling published by the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center and the Public Opinion Foundation.
In a speech at his campaign headquarters on Sunday evening, Putin brushed off Western criticism of the elections, telling his supporters it was “expected”.
“What did you want, for them to applaud us? They’re fighting with us in an armed conflict … their goal is to contain our development. Of course, they’re ready to say anything,” he said.
The war was front and centre in his victory speech, as Putin claimed he was securing the border from recent raids by pro-Ukrainian military units and said that his main tasks as president would be the war in Ukraine “strengthening defence capacity and the military”.
Asked about the potential for a direct conflict with NATO, he said: “I think that everything is possible in the modern world … everyone understands that this would be one step from a full-scale third world war. I don’t think that anyone is interested in that.”
He also responded for the first time to the death of Alexei Navalny, claiming he had approved to exchange the Kremlin critic for Russian prisoners in the West shortly before his death. “Unfortunately, what happened happened,” he said. “I agreed under one condition: we swap him, and he doesn’t come back. But that’s life.”
After counting 75% of the votes, Russia’s electoral commission said Putin was leading with 87.14% of the vote. In second place was the Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov.
The government claimed turnout was the highest in history at 74% of the electorate. Putin’s previous highest result came in 2018 when he purported to earn 76.7% of the vote with a 67.5% turnout.
