Putin vows Russia can’t be held back
Moscow, Russia --- Vladimir Putin said Russia would not be “intimidated” as he hailed an election victory that paves the way for the former spy to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than 200 years.
All of the 71-year-old’s major opponents are dead, in prison or exiled, and he has overseen an unrelenting crackdown on anybody who publicly opposes his rule or his military offensive in Ukraine.
“I want to thank all of you and all citizens of the country for your support and this trust,” Putin told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Moscow early Monday, hours after polls closed.
“No matter who or how much they want to intimidate us, no matter who or how much they want to suppress us, our will, our consciousness -- no one has ever succeeded in anything like this in history. It has not worked now and will not work in the future. Never,” he added.
With more than 99 percent of voting stations having submitted results, Putin had secured 87 percent of all votes cast, official election data showed, according to state news agency RIA.
It is a record victory in a presidential election where he faced no genuine competition.
The three-day election was marked by a surge in deadly Ukrainian bombardments, incursions into Russian territory by pro-Kyiv sabotage groups and vandalism at polling stations.
The Kremlin had cast the election as a moment for Russians to throw their weight behind the full-scale military operation in Ukraine, where voting was also being staged in Russian-controlled territories.
‘Drunk from power’
Putin singled out Russian troops fighting in Ukraine for special thanks in his postelection speech in Moscow.
And he was unrelenting in claiming his forces had a major advantage on the battlefield, even after a week that saw Ukraine mount some of its most significant aerial attacks on Russia and in which proUkrainian militias launched armed raids on Russian border villages.
“The initiative belongs entirely to the Russian armed forces. In some areas, our guys are just mowing them -- the enemy -- down,” he said.
Kyiv and its allies slammed the vote as a sham. 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.
As early as Friday, the first day of voting, EU chief Charles Michel had sarcastically congratulated Putin on his “landslide victory.”
Britain’s foreign minister David Cameron added his voice to the protests, saying “this is not what free and fair elections look like”, while the United States criticised the holding of the vote in Ukrainian territories occupied by Moscow.
The leaders of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Bolivia congratulated Putin on his reelection.