Moscow:

President Vladimir Putin hailed the “return” to Russia of annexed Ukrainian territories on Monday at a concert on Red Square after winning an election blasted as illegitimate by Western powers.

The ex-spy won over 87 percent of the vote in a three-day ballot which included voting in parts of Ukraine held by Russian forces.

Moscow has presented the weekend presidential election as proof that Russians have rallied around Putin more than two years into the Ukraine offensive.

Putin’s victory is widely expected to further tighten his grip on Russia, where dissent is no longer tolerated under fast-accelerating repression.

In power since the last day of 1999, he is now on course to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than two centuries.

“Hand in hand, we will move forward and this will make us stronger… Long live Russia!” Putin told the crowd attending a pop concert to mark 10 years since Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

Putin boasted of a new rail link in areas of Ukraine captured by Russian forces, saying those regions had “declared their desire to return to their native family”.

He appeared at the concert alongside the three candidates who ran against him after hosting them at a Kremlin meeting in which they all congratulated him.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin’s victory showed Russians were consolidating “around his path”, calling it “an exceptionally perfect result”.

All of the 71-year-old’s major opponents are dead, in prison or in exile and voting took place a month after Putin’s main challenger Alexei Navalny died in prison.

Authorities had called on Russians to take part in the vote out of patriotic duty.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich is the foundation of our country,” said Viktoria, 23, an IT worker at a state company as she headed to the Red Square concert.

Elena, a 64-year-old economist, said she was not surprised by the result “because I think that any citizen who respects our country voted for Putin”.

Ballot spoilers to be ‘dealt with’

The three-day vote — also held in occupied Ukraine — was marred by spoiled ballots and Ukrainian bombardments.

Thousands responded to the opposition’s call to protest the election by forming long queues at polling stations — both inside and outside Russia.

Yulia Navalnaya — who has vowed to continue her late husband Alexei’s work — queued with crowds in Berlin Sunday and said she had written his name on her ballot paper.

Moscow had warned Russians not to take part in the protests and on Monday dismissed the opposition.

“There are many people who… have completely broken away from the motherland,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“Yulia Navalnaya, whom you mentioned, belongs to this group of people who lose their roots,” he added.

Moscow has regularly blasted the hundreds of thousands of Russians who fled their country in the aftermath of the Ukraine offensive as traitors.

Ballots were also spoiled by green dye and there were several incidents of voting booths being set on fire.

Putin on Sunday warned that Russians who spoiled their ballots “have to be dealt with” and dismissed opposition protests as having “no effect”.

‘That’s life’

Putin on Sunday also said Navalny’s name for the first time in public — breaking his years-long tradition of never referring to his opponent by name.

It was the first time he had commented on Navalny’s death in prison on February 16th.

Putin said that he had green-lighted an initiative for a prisoner swap including Navalny for Russians held in Western jails — confirming allegations made by Navalny’s team.

“I agreed on one condition: for us to exchange him and for him not to return,” Putin said.

He said Navalny died days later.

“But this happens. There is nothing that you can do about it. That’s life.”

He did not say how Navalny died.

Navalny’s team alleges that he was killed on the eve of a prisoner swap.

Navalny is the latest Putin opponent to die in mysterious circumstances.

West slams vote

The Kremlin said Putin held phone calls with his ex-Soviet allies in Central Asia, Belarus and Azerbaijan after the vote.

He also received congratulations from countries such as China, North Korea, Venezuela and Myanmar, Russian state media said.

But the result was met with scathing statements from Western leaders — in contrast with the previous four elections Putin has won since 2000.

“This election has been based on repression and intimidation,” the EU’s foreign minister Josep Borrell said.

The UK also slammed the vote as unfair.

“Putin removes his political opponents, controls the media, and then crowns himself the winner. This is not democracy,” Britain’s foreign minister David Cameron said in a statement.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said Putin was a “dictator” who wanted to “rule forever.”
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A file photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
| Photo Credit: KRISHNAN VV

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election to the top office on March 18 and said that he is looking forward to further strengthening the “time-tested” ties between the two countries.

“Warm congratulations to H.E. Mr. Vladimir Putin on his re-election as the President of the Russian Federation,” Modi said in a post on ‘X’. “Look forward to working together to further strengthen the time-tested Special & Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia in the years to come,” he said.

Reports from Moscow said Mr. Putin won a historic fifth term as Russia’s president in a landslide victory. There has been criticism of the election process by some Western countries.

“If we talk about the illegitimacy of elections in our country, then we should probably talk about the illegitimacy of those 87% of the votes of the population…that were cast for President Putin. This is absurd,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a media briefing in Moscow.

A file photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
| Photo Credit: KRISHNAN VV

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election to the top office on March 18 and said that he is looking forward to further strengthening the “time-tested” ties between the two countries.

“Warm congratulations to H.E. Mr. Vladimir Putin on his re-election as the President of the Russian Federation,” Modi said in a post on ‘X’. “Look forward to working together to further strengthen the time-tested Special & Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia in the years to come,” he said.

Reports from Moscow said Mr. Putin won a historic fifth term as Russia’s president in a landslide victory. There has been criticism of the election process by some Western countries.

“If we talk about the illegitimacy of elections in our country, then we should probably talk about the illegitimacy of those 87% of the votes of the population…that were cast for President Putin. This is absurd,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a media briefing in Moscow.

A woman gets a ballot at a polling station during a presidential election in Mariupol, Russian-controlled Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Friday, March 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin is poised to extend nearly a quarter century of rule for six more years on Sunday after wrapping up an election that gave voters no real alternatives to an autocrat who has ruthlessly cracked down on dissent.

The three-day election that began on Friday has taken place in a tightly controlled environment where no public criticism of Putin or his war in Ukraine is allowed. Mr. Putin’s fiercest political foe, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison last month, and other critics are either in jail or in exile.

Navalny’s associates have urged those unhappy with Mr. Putin or the war to protest by coming to the polls at noon on Sunday, a strategy endorsed by Navalny shortly before his death. Team Navalny described it as a success, releasing pictures and videos of people crowding near polling stations in various cities across Russia around noon.

The 71-year-old Russian leader faces three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties who have refrained from any criticism of his 24-year rule or his full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago. Mr. Putin has boasted of Russian battlefield successes in the run-up to the vote, but a massive Ukrainian drone attack across Russia early on Sunday sent a reminder of challenges faced by Moscow.

The Russian Defence Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four near the Russian capital. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said there were no casualties or damage.

Russia’s wartime economy has proven resilient, expanding despite bruising Western sanctions. The Russian defence industry has served as a key growth engine, working around the clock to churn out missiles, tanks and ammunition.

Voting is taking place at polling stations across the vast country’s 11 time zones, in illegally annexed regions of Ukraine, and online. More than 60% of eligible voters had cast ballots as of early Sunday.

Dmitry Sergienko, who cast his ballot in Moscow, said he voted for Mr. Putin: “I am happy with everything and want everything to continue as it is now.”

Olga Dymova, who also backed Mr. Putin, said, “I am sure that our country will only move forward towards success.”

Another Moscow voter, who identified himself only by his first name, Vadim, said he hopes for change, but added that “unfortunately, it’s unlikely.”

Navalny’s associates broadcast footage with comments by those who turned up at the polls at noon to protest against Mr. Putin, their faces blurred to protect their identities.

“The action has achieved its goals,” Ivan Zhdanov, the head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said in a YouTube broadcast. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”

It wasn’t possible to confirm if the voters shown lining up at polling stations in videos and photos released by Navalny’s associates and some Russian media had responded to the protest call, or merely reflected strong turnout.

Despite tight controls, several dozen cases of vandalism at polling stations were reported.

A woman was arrested in St. Petersburg after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, and several others were detained across the country for throwing green antiseptic or ink into ballot boxes.

Dmitry Medvedev, a deputy head of the Russian Security Council chaired by Mr. Putin, called for toughening the punishment for those who vandalise polling stations, arguing they should face treason charges for attempting to derail the vote amid the fighting in Ukraine.

Some Russian media also posted images of spoiled ballots posted by voters.

Ahead of the election, Mr. Putin cast his war in Ukraine, now in its third year, as a life-or-death battle against the West seeking to break up Russia.

Russian troops have recently made slow advances relying on their edge in firepower, while Ukraine has fought back by intensifying cross-border attacks and launching drone strikes deep inside Russia.

The Ukrainian shelling of the city of Belgorod near the border killed a 16-year-old girl on Sunday and injured her father, according to the local governor, who also reported two deaths from Ukrainian attacks the previous day.

Putin described the attacks as an attempt by Ukraine to frighten residents and derail Russia’s presidential election, saying they “won’t be left unpunished.”

Western leaders have derided the election as a travesty of democracy.

Beyond the lack of options for voters, the possibilities for independent monitoring are very limited. No significant international observers were present. Only registered, Kremlin-approved candidates, or state-backed advisory bodies, can assign observers to polling stations, decreasing the likelihood of independent watchdogs.

Moscow:

Thousands of people turned up at polling stations across Russia on Sunday to take part in what the anti-Kremlin opposition said was a peaceful but symbolic political protest against the re-election of President Vladimir Putin.

In an action called “Noon against Putin”, Russians who oppose the veteran Kremlin leader went to their local polling station at midday to either spoil their ballot paper in protest or to vote for one of the three candidates standing against Putin, who is widely expected to win by a landslide.

Others had vowed to scrawl the name of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died last month in an Arctic prison, on their ballot paper.

Navalny’s allies broadcast videos on YouTube of lines of people queuing up at different polling stations across Russia at midday who they said were there to peacefully protest.

Navalny had endorsed the “Noon against Putin” plan in a message on social media facilitated by his lawyers before he died. The independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper called the planned action “Navalny’s political testament”.

“There is very little hope but if you can do something (like this) you should do it. There is nothing left of democracy,” one young woman, who did not give her name and whose face was blurred out by Navalny’s team, said at one polling station.

Another young woman at a different polling station, whose identity had been disguised in the same way, said she had voted for the “least dubious” of the three candidates running against Putin.

A male student voting in Moscow told Navalny’s channel that people like him who disagreed with the current system needed to go on living their lives regardless.

“History has shown that changes occur at the most unexpected of times,” he said.

Despite the protesters – who represent a small fraction of Russia’s 114 million voters – Putin is poised to tighten his grip on power in the election that is certain to deliver him a big victory.

The Kremlin casts Navalny’s political allies – most of whom are based outside Russia – as dangerous extremists out to destabilise the country on behalf of the West. It says Putin enjoys overwhelming support among ordinary Russians, pointing to opinion polls which put his approval rating above 80%.

With Russia’s vast landmass stretching across 11 time zones, protest voters were scattered rather than concentrated into a single mass, making it hard to estimate how many people turned up for the protest event.

The size of the queues at each polling station shown on Navalny’s channel ranged from a few dozen people to what looked like several hundred people.

Reuters journalists saw a slight increase in the flow of voters, especially younger people, at noon at some polling stations in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, with queues of several hundred people. Some said they were protesting though there were few outward signs to distinguish them from ordinary voters.

Leonid Volkov, an exiled Navalny aide who was attacked with a hammer last week in Vilnius, estimated hundreds of thousands of people had come out to polling stations in Moscow, St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and other cities.

Reuters could not independently verify that estimate.

At polling stations at Russian diplomatic missions from Australia and Japan to Armenia, Kazakhstan and Georgia, hundreds of Russians stood in line at noon.

In Berlin, Yulia, Navalny’s widow, showed up at the Russian embassy to take part in the protest event there along with Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokesperson. Other Russians present clapped and chanted her name.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Observers watch a live broadcast from polling stations at the Public election monitoring centre during Russia’s presidential election in Volgograd, Russia March 16, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Ukrainian bombardments killed two persons and set an oil facility ablaze in Russia on March 16, officials said, on the second day of elections guaranteed to cement President Vladimir Putin’s rule. Presidential polls opened this week but voting has been marred by an uptick in fatal Ukrainian aerial attacks and a series of incursions into Russian territory by pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups.

Fresh bombardments prompted authorities to close schools and shopping centres in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, undermining the Kremlin’s efforts to isolate Russians from its conflict with its neighbour — particularly during the highly touted elections.

Mr. Putin, who cast his vote online, vowed a harsh response to the assaults and accused Kyiv of trying to “disrupt” his bid for another six-year mandate.

The Governor of the Belgorod region said air defence systems had downed eight Ukrainian missiles but that two residents were killed and others injured.

“A man was driving a lorry when a shell hit him, after which the vehicle crashed into a passenger bus. The people on it were not injured,” Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on social media. “Another woman was killed in a parking lot where she and her son came to feed the dogs. Medics are fighting for her son’s life,” he added.

In a separate post, Mr. Gladkov announced that schools and shopping centres in the city of Belgorod and some surrounding districts would close temporarily over the coming days, the second time this month. Russia’s Defence Ministry earlier said it had downed rockets, missiles and drones in the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk that have suffered an uptick in fatal attacks in recent weeks.

Putin vows revenge

The Ministry later said it had fought off more “attempts to infiltrate into the territory of the Russian Federation by Ukrainian militant sabotage and reconnaissance groups”.

The border attacks were a concern for voters hundreds of kilometres away in the town of Sergiev Posad outside Moscow, famous for its ornate Orthodox monastery with golden onion domes.

Casting her ballot from home with the help of election officials going door-to-door to collect votes from the elderly, 87-year-old Inessa Rozhkova said she hoped the polls would bring about an end to the conflict with Ukraine. “Can you imagine how many people died? And now our border villages are suffering. We worry for them,” she said.

In a nearby polling station set up in the vocational school, 68-year-old Elena Kirsanova came with her husband to vote for Mr. Putin. “They try to scare us, but this is not a nation that can be intimidated,” Ms. Kirsanova told AFP.

Mr. Putin said this week in televised comments that the spate of aerial and ground assaults by Kyiv’s forces “will not go unpunished”.

The 71-year-old has been in power in Russia since the last day of 1999 and is set to extend his grip over the country until 2030. If he completes another Kremlin term, he would stay in power longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.

He is running unchallenged, having barred two candidates who opposed the conflict in Ukraine, and around one month after his main opponent, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison in unexplained circumstances.

The Kremlin has cast the election as an opportunity for Russians to show they are behind Moscow’s full-scale military campaign in Ukraine, where voting is also being held in occupied territory.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday hailed Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula — where voting is also taking place — 10 years ago from Ukraine.

“The peninsula is an integral part of the Russian Federation,” Lavrov said in a statement on the ministry’s website.

Oil facility ablaze

The first day of voting on Friday was however marred by acts of vandalism in polling stations, with a spate of arrests of Russians accused of pouring dye into ballot boxes or arson attacks.

And the ruling United Russia party that staunchly backs Putin announced Saturday it was suffering a large-scale hacking attack on its website.

The FSB security service also announced a spate of arrests, as polls opened, of Russians it said were aiding Ukrainian forces or planning to carry out sabotage at military and transport facilities.

On Saturday, they said they had detained a Russian man who was plotting with Kyiv’s help to set explosive devices on a railway line in the country’s central Urals region.

Ukrainian attacks on Russia have extended well beyond border regions too with Kyiv’s forces targeting oil facilities deep inside Russian territory over recent weeks.

The governor of the Samara region that lies around 800 km from the front lines said Saturday that Ukrainian drones had targeted two oil refineries, igniting a blaze at one of them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends an electronic voting during a presidential voting at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia, on March 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Russia began three days of voting on Friday in a presidential election that is all but certain to extend President Vladimir Putin’s rule by six more years after he stifled dissent.

At least half a dozen cases of vandalism at polling stations were reported, including a firebombing.

The election takes place against the backdrop of a ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and prominent rights groups and given Mr. Putin full control of the political system.

It also comes as Moscow’s war in Ukraine enters its third year. Russia has the advantage on the battlefield, where it is making small, if slow, gains.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has made Moscow look vulnerable behind the front line.

Russian regions bordering Ukraine have reported several attempts by Ukrainian fighters to take towns this week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that “it is beyond any doubt that they are related one way or another to attempts to cast a shadow on the elections.”

Voters are casting their ballots on Friday through Sunday at polling stations across the vast country’s 11 time zones, in illegally annexed regions of Ukraine and online.

Also read | Alexei Navalny, who galvanised opposition to Putin, is laid to rest after his death in prison

Officials said that voting was proceeding in an orderly fashion. But in St. Petersburg, a woman threw a Molotov cocktail onto the roof of a school that houses a polling station, local news media reported. The deputy head of the Russian Central Election Commission said people poured green liquid into ballot boxes in five places, including in Moscow.

The election holds little suspense since Mr. Putin, 71, is running for his fifth term virtually unchallenged. His political opponents are either in jail or in exile; the fiercest of them, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic penal colony last month. The three other candidates on the ballot are low-profile politicians from token opposition parties that toe the Kremlin’s line.

No Opposition, choice

Observers have little to no expectation that the election will be free and fair.

European Council President Charles Michel mordantly commented on Friday on the vote’s preordained nature. “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today. No opposition. No freedom. No choice,” he wrote on X.

Beyond the fact that voters have been presented with few options, the possibilities for independent monitoring are very limited. No significant international observer missions were present.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe’s monitors were not invited, and only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations, decreasing the likelihood of independent watchdogs. With balloting over three days in nearly 1,00,000 polling stations in the country, any true oversight is difficult anyway.

“The current elections will not be able to reflect the real mood of the people,” Golos, Russia’s renowned independent election observer group, said in the report.

“The distance between citizens and decision-making about the fate of the country has become greater than ever.”

St Petersburg:

A woman threw a Molotov cocktail Friday at a school being used as a voting station in Saint Petersburg during Russia’s presidential elections, electoral authorities said. 

The suspect was in her 20s, electoral official Maxim Meiksin said on Telegram. “The unlawful actions were promptly stopped by police officers. No one was injured,” he added.

Elsewhere, an explosive device was detonated at a polling station in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine but caused no deaths, as Moscow organises voting in territories it controls, Kremlin-backed officials said on Friday.

“In Skadovsk, an improvised explosive device was planted in a rubbish bin in front of a polling station. It detonated. There are no casualties or injuries,” Moscow’s electoral commission in the occupied Kherson region said. 

Russian forces also said that Kyiv had shelled polling stations in the occupied city of Kakhovka. 

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)