GUWAHATI: Russian president Vladimir Putin won his fifth election by a landslide margin on March 17, as per media reports.
The re-election gives him six more years as the head of the state, and if he completes the term it will make him Russia's longest-serving leader for more than 200 years.
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Putin reportedly won 87.8% of the vote, the highest ever result in Russia's post-Soviet history, according to an exit poll by pollster the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), even as several countries including the United States, Germany, and United Kingdom claimed that the elections were neither free nor fair due to censorship and the imprisonment of political opponents.
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In his victory speech, the 71-year old leader stated that he would prioritise resolving tasks associated with Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine and would focus on strengthening the Russian military.
"We have many tasks ahead. But when we are consolidated - no matter who wants to intimidate us, suppress us - nobody has ever succeeded in history, they have not succeeded now, and they will not succeed ever in the future," he said during his speech in Moscow.
Earlier during the polls, thousands of protesters had turned up at polling stations in Russia to take part in a symbolic protest against the re-election of President Vladimir Putin, while almost 74 people were arrested, according to reports.
