Vladimir Putin has won Russia’s presidential election with 87.97% of the vote, according to the first official results shown on Sunday after polls closed.
State-run exit polls Sunday showed Putin is cementing his position at the top of the Kremlin until at least 2030.
He is heading for a landslide victory in the presidential election to secure another six-year term, the poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre showed this evening.
The exit polls were released following the closure of polling stations in Russia’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad on Sunday evening.
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If confirmed, the result would be a record for Putin, who received 76.7% of the vote in the last presidential election in 2018.
The former KGB spy would become Russia’s longest-serving leader in more than 200 years, overtaking Josef Stalin.
Putin is now poised to extend his nearly quarter century of rule for six more years having presided over a thorough crackdown on dissent,
International observers did not monitor the election across the vast country which reaches across 11 time zones.
But the US and Ukraine are among a score of countries to pour scorn over the projected result, according to Mail Online.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused the Russian president, 71, of ‘doing everything to rule forever’.
The vote, which holds little suspense, is taking place against the backdrop of the harshest crackdown on political opposition and freedom of speech in Russia since Soviet times.
Only three token candidates – and no one who opposes his war in Ukraine – were allowed to run against him as he sought a fifth term.
Earlier demonstrations against Putin in Russia led to more than 60 people being arrested. (UK Mail Online)
