Putin to overtake Stalin as the longest-serving Russian leader in history.
Russian President Vladmir Putin has been re-elected for another six years. Putin says his win will make Russia stronger as results project a landslide. The result means that Putin looks to have easily won a new six-year term that would enable him to overtake Josef Stalin and become Russia’s longest-serving leader for more than 200 years.
Results show that it was a landslide win for Putin, who won 87.97% of the vote, the first official results show.
Mr. Putin, who has held the office of prime minister or president continuously since 1999, was one of four candidates on the ballot paper. Just after 9 p.m. on Sunday local time (5 a.m. AEDT), Russia’s Central Election Commission announced preliminary results showed Putin had won with 87.97 percent of the vote.
Nationwide turnout was 74.22% at 6 p.m. when polls closed, officials said, surpassing the 67.5% seen in 2018.
Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. After election results projected a landslide victory, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised China for its success on the world stage.He said China-Russia relations were durable and will become stronger in the coming years.
Sanctions on China are bound to fail, he continued.
Putin also stated that there is no democracy in the West, particularly the United States, and that Russia’s voting system is more transparent than the U.S.
By Nnaemeka Odenigbo
