President Vladimir Putin basked in an election victory that was by no means doubtful as officers stated Monday that he’d received his fifth time period with a document variety of votes, underlining the Russian chief’s complete management of the nation’s political system. After going through solely token challengers and harshly suppressing opposition voices, Putin prolonged his practically quarter-century rule for six extra years.
As CBS News senior overseas correspondent Elizabeth Palmer studies, the highly-predictable election outcomes set Putin as much as be the longest serving Russian chief in 200 years. But there have been small acts of seen protest in opposition to the voting, which was held only one month after Putin’s most potent critic, opposition chief Alexey Navalny, died in a distant jail in Russia’s far north.
Russia’s Central Election Commission stated Monday that with practically 100% of all precincts counted, Putin had received 87.29% of the vote. Commission chief Ella Pamfilova stated practically 76 million voters solid their ballots for Putin, his highest vote tally ever.
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Putin, 71, hailed the overwhelming outcomes as a sign of “belief” and “hope” in him. Critics noticed his landslide win, nonetheless, as merely one other reflection of the preordained nature of the election.
“Of course, now we have plenty of duties forward. But I need to make it clear for everybody: When we have been consolidated, nobody has ever managed to frighten us, to suppress our will and our self-conscience. They failed prior to now and they’ll fail sooner or later,” Putin stated at a information convention at his marketing campaign headquarters in Moscow early Monday, hours after the polls closed.
Putin on Navalny in prisoner swap
Putin referenced Navalny by title for the primary time in public on the information convention, declaring that he was able to launch him in a swap for unidentified inmates in Western custody simply days earlier than the opposition chief’s dying.
“As for Mr. Navalny. Yes, he handed away. This is at all times a tragic occasion,” AFP quotes him as saying, including that Putin remarked {that a} colleague had proposed a number of days earlier than Navalny died that Navalny be exchanged for “some folks” at the moment held in Western nations.
“The person who was speaking to me hadn’t completed his sentence and I stated ‘I agree,'” AFP studies Putin stated.
Navalny supporters have alleged that Putin ordered his killing on the eve of the swap, AFP notes.
If he finishes his upcoming time period, Putin can have been in energy longer than any Russian chief since Catherine the Great within the 18th century, the French information company AFP identified.
Public criticism of Putin and his battle in Ukraine has been stifled in Russia. Independent media have been crippled. Former Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a airplane explosion in August 2023, two months after he led an armed rise up in opposition to Moscow’s navy management. Putin’s fiercest political foe, Navalny, died in jail final month, and different main critics are both useless, imprisoned or in exile.
Beyond the truth that voters had nearly no selection, impartial monitoring of the election was extraordinarily restricted.
Putin critics make their presence felt
Even with little margin for protest, Russians crowded outdoors polling stations at midday on Sunday, the final day of the election, apparently heeding a name from Navalny’s motion to specific their displeasure with the president.
Lines outdoors plenty of polling stations each inside Russia and at its embassies around the globe appeared to swell at the moment.
Among these heeding name was Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, who spent greater than 5 hours within the line on the Russian Embassy in Berlin. She advised reporters that she wrote her late husband’s title on her poll.
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Asked whether or not she had a message for Putin, Navalnaya replied: “Please cease asking for messages from me or from any individual for Mr. Putin. There could possibly be no negotiations and nothing with Mr. Putin, as a result of he is a killer, he is a gangster.”
But Putin dismissed the effectiveness of the obvious protest.
“There have been calls to come back vote at midday. And this was imagined to be a manifestation of opposition. Well, if there have been calls to come back vote, then… I reward this,” he stated at a information convention after polls closed.
Some Russians ready to vote in Moscow and St. Petersburg advised The Associated Press they have been collaborating within the protest but it surely wasn’t potential to verify whether or not all of these in line have been doing so. A voter in Moscow, who recognized himself solely as Vadim, stated he hoped for change, however added that “sadly, it is unlikely.” Like others, he did not give his full title due to safety issues.
Meanwhile, supporters of Navalny streamed to his grave in Moscow, some bringing ballots along with his title written on them.
Meduza, Russia’s greatest impartial information outlet, revealed images of ballots it acquired from its readers, with “killer” inscribed on one and “The Hague awaits you” on one other. The latter refers to an arrest warrant for Putin on battle crimes expenses from the International Criminal Court.
Several folks have been arrested, together with in Moscow and St. Petersburg, after they tried to start out fires or set off explosives at polling stations whereas others have been detained for throwing inexperienced antiseptic or ink into poll bins.
Stanislav Andreychuk, co-chair of the Golos impartial election watchdog, stated Russians have been searched when coming into polling stations, there have been makes an attempt to verify filled-out ballots earlier than they have been solid, and one report stated police demanded a poll field be opened to take away a poll.
Some folks advised the AP they have been completely satisfied to vote for Putin, nonetheless — unsurprising in a rustic the place state TV airs a drumbeat of reward for the Russian chief and voicing another opinion is dangerous.
Dmitry Sergienko, who solid his poll in Moscow, stated, “I’m pleased with all the pieces and need all the pieces to proceed as it’s now.”
Reaction from around the globe
Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean chief Kim Jong Un and the presidents of Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela shortly congratulated Putin on his victory, as did the leaders of the ex-Soviet Central Asian nations of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, whereas the West dismissed the vote as a sham.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron wrote on X, previously often called Twitter: “This just isn’t what free and truthful elections appear like.”
And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy assailed Putin as a “dictator” who was “drunk from energy,” AFP reported, including that Zelenskyy stated: “There is not any evil he is not going to decide to delay his private energy.”
Voting was held throughout Russia in addition to in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, a transfer that was condemned by greater than 50 international locations in a joint assertion issued by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller final week referred to voting in occupied Ukraine as “sham elections.”
“The United States doesn’t and can by no means acknowledge the legitimacy or consequence of those sham elections held in sovereign Ukraine as a part of Russia’s presidential elections,” Miller stated.
When requested if the U.S. would acknowledge Putin as an elected president, Miller stated, “We will watch the election, and I’m certain we’ll have loads to say when it concludes.”
