Russia: After Suppressing Opponents, Putin Secures Another Six-Year Term
Exit polls on Sunday showed that Vladimir Putin has won and secured another six-year term as Russian president.
The win means hardline former spy will become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than 200 years.
The 71-year-old victory was never in doubt, with all his major opponents dead, in prison or exiled.
Osun Defender reports that Putin’s most prominent rival, Alexei Navalny, was allegedly killed in an Arctic prison last month
Also, Putin and his people had waged an unrelenting crackdown on those who publicly opposed the Kremlin or its military offensive on Ukraine.
The government-run VTsIOM pollster projected that Putin had sailed to an easy victory with 87 per cent of the vote after polls closed in Russia’s western-most region of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.
Speaking on the victory, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out at Putin as a “dictator” who was “drunk from power”.
“There is no evil he will not commit to prolong his personal power,” Zelensky said in a message on social media.
