(CN) — Vladimir Putin was reelected for six more years as Russia's president on Sunday in an election that Western leaders called neither fair nor free.
The outcome was no surprise and Putin's critics charged that the election was a farce riddled with irregularities, including fake ballots, forced voting, the illegal elimination of opponents and police intimidation at polling stations.
Still, polls show Putin is very popular and that many Russians view him as the strong leader the country needs at a time of conflict with the West. It appears Putin has managed to keep the confidence of Russians even after he launched the invasion of Ukraine.
After two years of bloody fighting, Russian forces have the upper hand on the battlefield and the Russian economy has withstood the onslaught of Western sanctions meant to turn the “ruble to rubble,” as U.S. President Joe Biden mocked after the invasion started.
After three days of voting, Putin received more than 87% of the ballot. Russia's election commission said turnout was a record 77%. His three rivals each received between 3% and 4% and congratulated him on his victory.
Putin, 71, has been in power since the last day of 1999 serving as either president or prime minister. He is longest-serving Russian or Soviet leader since Joseph Stalin and with this fifth term as president he is on course to be the longest-serving Russian leader in more than two centuries.
On Monday night, Putin held a victory celebration in Red Square and hailed the “return” to Russia of annexed Ukrainian territories. Voting took place in Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian forces.
“Hand in hand, we will move forward and this will make us stronger... Long live Russia!” Putin told the crowd, which was in attendance to celebrate both Putin's win and to mark 10 years since Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
The three candidates who ran against him in the presidential election stood on the stage with him.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin's victory showed Russians were consolidating “around his path.”
“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, as reported by AFP.
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.”
Putin's international friends, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi, sent him compliments on his win.
Xi said Putin's victory “fully reflects” the support of the Russian people and Modi said he looked forward to strengthening ties with Russia.
“Look forward to working together to further strengthen the time-tested Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia in the years to come,” Modi wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
North Korea, Iran and Venezuela also congratulated Putin on his win.
Western leaders, though, rejected the election result.
“The elections are obviously not free nor fair given how Mr. Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him,” the White House said.
Josep Borrell, the European Union's top diplomat, echoed that assessment and said Putin's reelection was based on “repression and intimidation.”
EU leaders said Russians were denied their democratic rights after all candidates opposed to the war in Ukraine were kept off the ballot. They also said they would never recognize the results of elections in Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia.
Britain's Foreign Secretary David Cameron called the elections illegal and blasted Russia's refusal to allow independent election observers.
“This is not what free and fair elections look like,” Cameron said.
On Monday, Golos, an independent Russian election monitoring group, called Putin's presidential campaign blatantly unconstitutional.
“Never have we seen a presidential campaign so out of line with constitutional standards,” the group said in a statement.
In 2021, Putin signed into law constitutional changes that allowed him to hold office for two additional six-year terms, giving himself the possibility to stay in power until 2036.
Golos blasted the elections as an “imitation” of what open elections look like.
“The only thing that wasn’t an imitation was the violence against the people as the bearers of sovereignty,” Golos said.
Golos said Russia's state apparatus “became involved in propaganda, coercion and control over voters” and that “military censorship” was implemented “through fear and force.”
Reports from anti-government Russian media outlets accused authorities of rigging the election.
Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper highly critical of Putin that was forced to leave Russia, claimed about half of the votes for Putin were fraudulent based on a statistical analysis. Russian election officials said 74.5 million Russians cast ballots and that 64.7 million voted for Putin.
Meduza, an anti-government Russian news outlet based in Latvia, reported there was evidence many people were coerced to vote for Putin by their employers.
The election was marked by protests too. By Sunday, OVD-Info, a Russian human rights group, counted more than 86 arrests linked to voting in 21 different cities across Russia.
Those arrested included people who poured ink into ballot boxes and tried to set polling stations on fire. Meduza reported that people also spoiled their ballots by writing anti-Putin and anti-war slogans on their voting papers.
Supporters of Alexey Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in prison in February, also heeded calls to protest the election by showing up en masse at polling stations at noon on Sunday in Russia and at Russian embassies around the world. Many of these protesters wrote anti-government messages on their ballots, Meduza reported.
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Navalny who's pledged to carry on his political movement, was among those who took part in the protests.
After waiting six hours in line outside the Russian embassy in Berlin, she wrote the name Navalny on her ballot and added one of her dead husband's favorite slogans: “Don’t give up.”
During a news conference on Sunday, Putin mentioned Navalny's name for the first time in public. Before that, he had never referred to Navalny by name.
Putin said he had approved 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, as reported by AFP.
Navalny died three days later, he said. “But this happens. There is nothing that you can do about it. That's life.”
He did not say how Navalny died. Navalny's associates accuse Putin of ordering him to be killed on the eve of a prisoner swap.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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