https://apnews.com/article/russia-election-putin-2024-updates-ebdaae1bf12b44343b88ba471f9f0cb0?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share
Putin extends rule in preordained Russian election after harshest crackdown since Soviet era
Vladimir Putin has secured an unprecedented fifth term as president of Russia. The country’s election commission announced the results of an election in which he faced no serious challenges and which happened amid the strictest crackdown on opposition and free speech since Soviet times.
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BY EMMA BURROWS, DASHA LITVINOVA AND JIM HEINTZ
Updated 1:34 PM EDT, March 18, 2024
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President Vladimir Putin extended his reign over Russia in a landslide election whose outcome was never in doubt, declaring Monday his determination to advance deeper into Ukraine and dangling new threats against the West.
After the harshest crackdown on dissent since Soviet times, it was clear from the earliest returns that Putin’s nearly quarter-century rule would continue with a fifth term that grants him six more years. Still, Russians heeded a call to protest Putin’s repression and his war in Ukraine by showing up at polling stations at noon on Sunday.