Vladimir Putin was headed for another six-year term as Russian president on Sunday, March 17, exit polls showed, paving the way for him to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than 200 years. Victory for the 71-year-old in the three-day vote 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. With more than 80% of voting stations having submitted results, Putin had secured 87.2% of all votes cast, official election data showed – a record victory in a presidential election.
In his victory speech, Putin said Russia would not be "intimidated." "I want to thank all of you and all citizens of the country for your support and this trust," Putin said early Monday morning in a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Moscow hours after polls closed. "No matter who or how much they want to intimidate us, no matter who or how much they want to suppress us, our will, our consciousness – no one has ever succeeded in anything like this in history. It has not worked now and will not work in the future. Never," he added.
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 a 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.
'Drunk from power'
Putin singled out Russian troops fighting in Ukraine for special thanks in his post-election speech in Moscow. And he was unrelenting in claiming his forces had a major advantage on the battlefield, even after a week that saw Ukraine mount some of its most significant aerial attacks on Russia and in which pro-Ukrainian militias barraged Russian border villages with armed raids. "The initiative belongs entirely to the Russian armed forces. In some areas, our guys are just mowing them – the enemy – down," he said.
Kyiv and its allies slammed the vote – which was also staged in parts of Ukraine under Russian forces' control – as a sham. 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.
As early as Friday, the first day of voting in the election, EU chief Charles Michel had sarcastically congratulated Putin on his "landslide victory." If he completes another full Kremlin term, Putin will have stayed in power longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.
Allies of the late Alexei Navalny – Putin's most prominent rival, who died in an Arctic prison last month – had tried to spoil his inevitable victory, urging voters to flood polling stations at noon and spoil their ballots. A top ally of Navalny dismissed the huge vote numbers: "The percentages drawn for Putin have, of course, not the slightest relation to reality," Leonid Volkov, Navalny's former chief of staff, said in a post on Telegram.
His wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was greeted by supporters with flowers and applause in Berlin. After voting at the Russian embassy, she said she had written her late husband's name on her ballot.