Preliminary turnout was put at 74.2 per cent. That is the highest since Boris Yeltsin became president in 1991 after the Soviet Union’s collapse, and well above the 67.5 per cent turnout recorded in 2018. At least six Russian regions claimed turnout was above 90 per cent.
Putin said police would take action against those who spoiled their ballots.
“People who spoiled their ballot papers … These kinds of people have to be dealt with,” he said.
Putin wins Russian election with 88 per cent of vote, exit poll shows
Putin wins Russian election with 88 per cent of vote, exit poll shows
Supporters of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny had called on Russians to turn up at polling stations for a “Noon against Putin” protest to show their opposition to a leader they describe as a corrupt autocrat. Putin said the action had “no effect” but that those who had prevented other people voting by acts of vandalism should be punished.
Putin said the death of Navalny was a “sad event”, and that he had been ready to release him in a prisoner exchange.
Using his name in public for the first time in years during the televised news conference, Putin said: “As for Mr Navalny. Yes, he passed away. This is a sad event.”
He added: “A few days before Mr Navalny passed away, some colleagues told me … there was an idea to exchange Mr Navalny for some people who are in prison in Western countries … I said ‘I agree’.”
The Russian president said the main condition for the exchange was that Navalny would not return to Russia.
Navalny was Putin’s fiercest domestic opponent. His allies accuse Putin of having him murdered, something the Kremlin denies.
On the war in Ukraine, Putin told reporters that Russia’s priority must be to solve the tasks associated with what he calls Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine and make the army stronger.
He said he would do everything he could to solve those tasks and the targets that Putin and his administration consider a priority.
He said Russia’s armed forces were advancing in Ukraine every day and that Moscow’s forces held the initiative on the battlefield, expressing “special words of gratitude to our soldiers … who fulfil the most important task of protecting our people”.
Putin said his country would not be intimidated.
“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,” Putin said in his address.
He said the presence of Western troops in Ukraine could lead the world to the brink of World War Three, but that he did not think that anyone was interested in such a possibility.
Russia election: calls for massive protests as Putin set to extend his rule
Russia election: calls for massive protests as Putin set to extend his rule
Putin also said Russia was ready for talks on a French proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine during the Paris Olympics, but would need to take Russia’s interests on the front line into account.
Ukraine reported dozens of attacks by Russia near their shared border on Sunday. Moscow has accused Kyiv of election sabotage with days of strikes on Russian infrastructure, one of the most sweeping air operations on Russian territory since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
In Russia’s Belgorod region earlier in the last day of voting, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Ukrainian shelling killed one man and wounded 11 others. He said a 16-year-old girl had been killed in the border region after a Ukrainian shell set her house on fire earlier in the day.
The military administration in Ukraine’s Sumy region reported 60 shelling incidents of border territories and settlements. It also said the city of Konotop suffered a rocket attack but no injuries were reported.
02:36
Vladimir Putin deploys troops near Finland border, warns that Russia is ‘ready’ for nuclear war
Vladimir Putin deploys troops near Finland border, warns that Russia is ‘ready’ for nuclear war
One person was killed and another injured in Velykopysarivska community, authorities in Sumy said. Buildings or infrastructure were also damaged there including a hospital department, a kindergarten, a library, a multi-storey building and a gas pipeline, it said.
Ukraine’s emergency services said Russian aerial bombs hit a residential area in Vovchansk in the nearby border region of Kharkiv, igniting a fire that covered an area of 200 square metres and damaged buildings and cars. No injuries were reported.
Earlier on Sunday one man was killed and at least eight people were wounded in a Russian missile attack on the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian officials said, after an overnight strike on Odesa.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg