Putin extends his rule over Russia, claiming landslide win after election with no real opposition

President Vladimir Putin’s rule over Russia will be extended for at least another six years, after he claimed a landslide win Monday in a stage-managed presidential election with no real opposition.

The vote was orchestrated to legitimize the leadership of Putin, 71, after a crackdown on dissent that has left his rivals dead, jailed or in exile as his war in neighboring Ukraine enters its third year. Having led Russia for 24 years already, he will soon match Soviet leader Josef Stalin as the country’s longest-serving modern ruler.

Putin received 87.3% of the vote, Russia’s election commission said Monday after more than 99% of ballots had been counted, his highest-ever tally and far more than the 76.69% in 2018. The commission reported that turnout was 77.44%, the highest in Russia's modern history.

In a news conference late Sunday, Putin hailed the results as an indication of the country’s “trust” in him.

Russian elections have for years been tainted by mass fraud allegations, but the result this time was never in doubt and the overwhelming endorsement claimed by the Kremlin will likely raise even more suspicion.

Speaking with NBC News in Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the “unbelievable level” of support for Putin was the “best sign that all the speculation about illegal elections is actually ungrounded.”

The leaders of China, North Korea and Iran were among those who congratulated Putin on his big win. No Western leaders rushed to offer praise. Some, including the U.S., Germany and Britain, dismissed the results as neither free nor fair.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there was no legitimacy in “this imitation of elections,” accusing Putin of being “addicted to power.”

The three other names on the ballot were from parties that have long served the Kremlin’s agenda: Communist Nikolai Kharitonov; leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party Leonid Slutsky; and Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, the youngest candidate, whom the Kremlin tried to present as more liberal-leaning.

None represented true opposition to Putin, however, having supported his agenda and barely campaigned.

Former regional legislator Yekaterina Duntsova and politician Boris Nadezhdin tried to get on the ballot with an anti-war message, but authorities barred them from running.

The country was also able to vote electronically and over a span of three days, as the Kremlin sought to encourage a higher turnout that would allow it to claim a wave of support for Putin and his war.

Since the full-scale invasion that Putin launched in February 2022, the Kremlin has insisted the entire nation has been “consolidated” around the Russian leader and his growing clash with the West. Putin’s approval ratings have remained high, although gauging public opinion is difficult in Russia as people are often too afraid to speak freely.

The Russians who oppose Putin’s war and politics have been ostracized, often forced into exile or persecuted for their views as part of a sweeping crackdown on dissent not seen since the Soviet era.

Russia’s opposition has been decimated by years of pressure and devastated by the death of its leader, Alexei Navalny, in a remote Arctic prison just weeks before the election, in what his supporters, family and many Western leaders have called a Kremlin-orchestrated murder.

Despite this atmosphere of repression in which mass protests are all but impossible, just before his death Navalny called for people to gather at polling stations on Sunday at noon in a show of dissent.

Navalny’s team shared images of people lining up outside polling stations in Moscow and St. Petersburg in apparent "Noon against Putin" protests on Sunday.

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, cast her vote in Berlin, telling reporters she voted for her late husband by writing his name into the ballot, as she thanked her fellow citizens for coming out in support.

There were also more fiery displays of anger, with state media reporting multiple incidents of Russians throwing colored dye or Molotov cocktails at ballot boxes and polling stations.

In the absence of real alternatives and reliable polling, the Kremlin was keen to be able to claim a landslide win and high turnout as the true barometer of support for the course that Putin has charted for his country, with the military at its core. On the eve of the election, Putin called on Russians to vote as a “manifestation of patriotic feelings” and said it was “necessary to reaffirm our unity and determination to move forward together.”

On the snowy streets of Moscow ahead of the vote, people were hesitant to talk about the election and there was little sense of a crucial event about to decide anything about the country’s future.

Most told NBC News they were casting their vote for Putin or not at all.

Asked how the Russian economy has fared through the war, Sergei, a lawyer from Siberia, said he had not felt the effect of international sanctions. “I work harder and more diligently, that’s all,” Sergei, 42, said. “I have not really felt it. There is definitely something there, inflation. But this is the time we live in.”

The Russian economy’s resilience in the face of the Western sanctions has boosted Putin. Though some prices have soared and the war has added to a labor shortage, official statistics show wages have risen, too, helping to keep the war from the top of many Russians’ everyday thoughts.

Sergei said he was confident that Russia would win the war and emerge better off from it.

“We will live better,” he said. “As always, we never fall into despair and hope for the best.”

The vote came as Russian troops in Ukraine pushed forward against Kyiv’s army, weakened by ammunition and personnel shortages amid faltering Western support. In a symbolic victory for Putin ahead of the vote, Russia took the nearly ruined Ukrainian town of Avdiivka after months of fighting, underscoring the warnings that reduced backing for Kyiv would strengthen the Kremlin’s hand.

For the first time, four Ukrainian regions that Putin annexed in late 2022 voted in Russia’s presidential election, despite the fact that Moscow’s forces do not fully control the regions and front-line battles raged close by.

Coinciding with Putin's landslide win Monday, Russia marks the 10-year anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, seen as an illegal land grab by most of the international community, but as a “historic homecoming” by many in Russia. Putin is expected to attend an evening concert dedicated to the anniversary in Red Square.

For several days ahead of the election and even as Russians voted, Ukrainian drones assailed regions across the country, and pro-Ukrainian armed groups attempted incursions into the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk. Putin vowed revenge for what he said was a “criminal” effort “to disrupt the voting process and intimidate the people.”

Belgorod's governor was still reporting air attacks by Ukraine on Monday, resulting in causalities and damage, while the country's defense ministry reported another incursion attempt in the region.

Putin has been in power since 2000, only stepping aside into the role of prime minister for four years between 2008 and 2012. Constitutional amendments he spearheaded in 2021 reset his presidential terms and allow him to stay in power until at least 2036, when he will be 83 years old.