With a new six-year term, Putin Cements will retain Russian leadership
President Vladimir V. Putin on Sunday extended his rule over Russia until 2030, using a heavily staged presidential election without real competition to win overwhelming public support for his domestic dominance and his invasion of Ukraine.
Some Russians tried to turn the undemocratic mood into a protest, forming long lines at polling stations at a predetermined time (noon) to express their dissatisfaction. At the same time, Ukraine tried to cast its own vote of sorts by firing a volley of exploding drones at Moscow and other targets.
But the Kremlin brushed aside these challenges and released results after polls closed claiming Putin had won 87 percent of the vote – an even higher number than in the four previous elections in which he participated.
Then Mr. Putin took a long televised victory lap, including a boastful post-midnight press conference at which he commented for the first time on the death of jailed opposition leader Alexei A. Navalny, calling it an “unfortunate event.” incident.”
Mr Putin is now poised to use his new six-year term to further consolidate his control over Russian politics and continue the war in Ukraine. If he lasts the term to the end, he will become the longest-serving Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.
Western governments quickly condemned the elections as undemocratic. Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for President Biden’s National Security Council, said that “the election was clearly not free or fair.”
But as Putin prepares for a fifth term as president, he appears as invigorated as ever. He deepens his confrontation with the West and shows a willingness to continue escalating tensions. Asked at the news conference whether he believed a full-scale conflict between Russia and NATO was possible, Mr Putin replied: “I think anything is possible in today’s world.”
Despite condemnation from the West, the Kremlin sees these elections as a ritual crucial to Putin’s portrayal of himself as a truly popular leader. Analysts now expect him to elevate hardline pro-war supporters within the Russian government, betting that Western support for Ukraine will eventually crumble and the Ukrainian government will be forced to negotiate a peace deal on Russian terms.
Asked about his priorities for his next term, Mr Putin began by referring to his invasion of Ukraine. “We have to carry out the tasks in the context of the special military operation,” he said. The results, he said, have helped “consolidate society around his leadership,” a refrain also repeated on state television.
The extent of the Russian public’s actual support for Putin in the election was difficult to assess, given that opposition candidates were not allowed to run and that voter fraud and other cases of fraud were common in recent Russian elections. This was also the least transparent election in recent Russian history, with the work of independent pollsters reduced to levels not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It was reported that more than five million votes came from Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, where people were sometimes ordered to cast their votes under the watch of armed Russian soldiers; in the occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine, Putin is said to have received 95 percent of the votes.
In the last presidential election, in 2018, Putin’s official result was 78 percent of the vote – some 10 points lower than this weekend.
Grigorii Golosov, a political scientist in St. Petersburg, said in a telephone interview that he was surprised by the high share of votes the Kremlin claimed, describing it as “characteristic of extremely closed autocracies.”
“They can announce whatever results they want as the process is not transparent,” Mr Golosov said. “All these results speak to is the degree of control over the electoral system and electoral process that Russian authorities have achieved.”
For the first time in a Russian presidential election, voting lasted three days, from Friday to Sunday — a longer period that made it easier for the Kremlin to boost turnout and harder for everyone else to detect fraud.
Since Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian authorities have waged a campaign of repression not seen since Soviet times, effectively criminalizing any form of anti-war speech.
And some voters interviewed in Moscow said they were proud to have voted for Putin, repeating a narrative that is a staple of Russian state television. The president, they said, had turned Russia into a prosperous, respected world power that had been forced into military conflict with Western-armed Ukraine.
“I am proud of my country and my president,” said 59-year-old Irina near a polling station on Kutuzovsky Avenue in central Moscow. She declined to give her last name when speaking to a Western reporter. “He has elevated us worldwide to such an extent that he will not be offended by anyone.”
Ukraine has repeatedly tried to undermine Putin’s image as a leader who protects Russia by carrying out attacks during the voting period.
On Sunday, Russian officials said Ukraine had attacked seven regions of the country with exploding drones, and the Russian military said it had shot down 35 of them. An oil refinery was set on fire in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia and air defense forces shot down two drones flying towards Moscow, Russian officials said.
But there was little evidence that the attacks – which were largely ignored by state media – had succeeded in puncturing Putin’s aura among his supporters.
Pyotr, 41, a marketing specialist in Moscow, expressed pride that Mr Putin could outsmart Western adversaries and outlast them. “Against the background of these vice-presidents, the Macrons and so on,” he said, referring to President Emmanuel Macron of France, Mr. Putin looks like such a heavenly being.”
The other three candidates for the presidential election were all members of the Duma, Russia’s parliament, and had voted for the war in Ukraine, for more censorship and for laws restricting gay rights.
While Putin’s best-known critics were in prison or in exile, a little-known opponent of the war, Boris B. Nadezhdin, managed to collect tens of thousands of signatures in an effort to get on the ballot. But the government last month invalidated enough signatures to ban him, citing what it called “irregularities.”
Yet Russia’s embattled and largely exiled opposition managed to use the election to spark an unusual protest: Putin’s opponents were encouraged to gather at their polling station at noon local time on Sunday. While it was difficult to gauge how many voters chose that moment to express their dissatisfaction, a polling station near Moscow’s famous Tretyakov Gallery was relatively quiet before a long line suddenly formed around noon.
“This is our protest – we have no other options,” said Lena, 61, who showed up at a polling station in central Moscow before noon with the intention, she said, of spoiling her ballot. “All of us decent people are hostages here.”
Like other voters interviewed, she declined to give her last name for fear of reprisals.
The afternoon lines were even longer in cities with large Russian diasporas – such as Belgrade, Serbia and Yerevan, Armenia – where the Russian embassy served as a polling station. At 1 p.m., the line to vote in Berlin snaked about a mile through the city streets, ending just past where a sign marked the location of Hitler’s World War II bunker.
Yulia Navalnaya, Mr Navalny’s widow, waited in line for about six hours, making one of her first public appearances since declaring she would continue her husband’s political work after he died last month. After leaving the Russian embassy, she said she wrote “Navalny” on her ballot.
Ms Navalnaya hugged and took photos with supporters who approached her, some of them in tears.
Yulia Lozovskaya, 29, who moved to Germany from St. Petersburg after Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, said she sought out Ms. Navalnaya after learning through social media that she was in a queue somewhere.
“You feel that you are not alone,” Ms. Lozovskaya said, referring to the size of the crowd. “And that gives enormous power.”
Reporting was contributed by Alina Lobzina, Valerie Hopkins, Anatoly Kurmanayev And Milana Mazaeva.