Vladimir Putin re-elected as Russian President, western powers criticise victory.

Vladimir Putin has claimed a landslide victory in Russia’s presidential vote, as thousands in the country and around the world protested against his deepening dictatorship, the war in Ukraine and a stage-managed election that could have only one winner.

In a vote denounced by the United States as “obviously not free nor fair”, Putin won 87% of the vote, according to exit polling published by the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center and the Public Opinion Foundation.

In a speech at his campaign headquarters on Sunday evening, Putin brushed off western criticism of the elections, telling his supporters it was expected.

“What did you want, for them to applaud us? They’re fighting with us in an armed conflict … their goal is to contain our development. Of course they’re ready to say anything,” he said.

The war was front and centre in his victory speech, as Putin claimed he was securing the border from recent raids by pro-Ukrainian military units and said that his main tasks as president would be the war in Ukraine of strengthening defence capacity and the military.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded in an address on Sunday evening by claiming Putin had become addicted to power.

“This imitation of ‘elections’ has no legitimacy and cannot have any,” he said. “This person must end up in the dock in The Hague. This is what we must ensure, anyone in the world who values life and decency.”

The German foreign ministry wrote in a post on X that the “pseudo-election in #Russia is neither free nor fair, the result will surprise nobody. Putin’s rule is authoritarian, he relies on censorship, repression & violence. The ‘election’ in the occupied territories of #Ukraine is null and void & another breach of international law.”

Putin is eligible to seek two more six-year terms after his latest expires next year, potentially allowing him to remain in power until 2036.

By 2029 his tenure will have surpassed that of Joseph Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union for 29 years, making Putin the country’s longest-serving leader since the Russian empire.