Putin locks in iron rule for fresh term

I am a member of your team … we are bound for success — VLADIMIR PUTIN

VLADIMIR Putin has extended his hard-line rule of Russia after a predictable landslide election victory.

Mr Putin, 65, who will now serve as President until 2024 after his win yesterday, has reimposed the Kremlin’s grip on society since taking power 18 years ago after a lawless but relatively free decade following the demise of the USSR.

With nearly all the ballots counted he had received more than 75 per cent of the vote. But the main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, was excluded from the race.

Mr Putin’s closest “rival”, millionaire communist Pavel Grudinin, received just 12 per cent.

The vote was tainted by widespread reports of ballotbox stuffing and forced voting.

The size of his win, which was widely expected, is a large increase on the 64 per cent of the vote he secured in 2012.

Mr Putin’s campaign team labelled it an “incredible victory” and he has already pledged to improve Russia’s defences against the West.

More than 30,000 crowded into Manezh Square adjacent to the Kremlin in temperatures of -10C for a victory concert and to await his words.

Mr Putin extolled them for their support: “I am a member of your team … we are bound for success”.

The former KGB officer has stamped his total authority on Russia, silencing opposition and reasserting Moscow’s lost might abroad while building a strongman image through widely panned macho stunts.

On the international stage, he has dealt with three US presidents and pushed Moscow into a new rivalry with the West by snatching Crimea from Ukraine and launching a pivotal military intervention in Syria.

Supporters laud him as a saviour who restored pride and traditional values to a humiliated nation.

But to foes Mr Putin has dragged his homeland further from democracy, presided over a seizure of the state by a new elite of former secret police cronies and stoked nationalism in a bid to restore Moscow’s lost empire.

The annexation of Crimea and the redrawing of Russia’s border sparked the worst standoff with the West since the Cold War.