Vladimir Putin gets 5th term as Russian president

President Vladimir Putin

Election commission results on Monday showed that President Vladimir Putin has secured a fifth term with an overwhelming number of votes, in an election that held little suspense after the harshest crackdown on the opposition and free speech since Soviet times.

After facing only token challengers and harshly suppressing opposition voices, Putin was set to extend his nearly quarter-century rule for six more years. Even with little margin for protest, Russians crowded outside polling stations at noon on Sunday, the last day of the election, apparently heeding an opposition call to express their displeasure with the president.

Putin has led Russia as president or prime minister since December 1999, a tenure marked by international military aggression and an increasing intolerance for dissent.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the presidents of Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela quickly congratulated Putin on his victory, as did the leaders of ex-Soviet nations Belarus, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, the West called the vote a sham as voters had no choice but to vote for Putin.

Navalny's widow casts ballot with his name

Alexei Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya cast her ballot in Russia's presidential election in Berlin on Sunday. She spent more than five hours queuing and told reporters after casting her vote that she wrote her late husband's name on the ballot. Navalny died at a prison in Yamalo-Nenets in Western Siberia on February 16.

Putin claims he backed release for Navalny

Vladimir Putin said Monday that he supported an idea to release opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a prisoner exchange days before the man died. In his first comments to address Navalny's death, Putin said that several days before Navalny's death, "certain colleagues, not from the administration" told him about "an idea to swap Navalny for certain people held in penitentiary facilities in western countries." He said he supported the idea.

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