President Vladimir Putin won a fifth term in the Kremlin with 87.28 percent of the vote, Russia's electoral commission said Monday, after a three-day ballot in which he ran against no real challengers. While Putin’s friends and allies were quick to congratulate him, Western leaders denounced what they called an illegal election.
While the results of the 2024 presidential election was never in doubt, many Russians attempted to defy the inevitable outcome, heeding a call to protest Putin’s repression at home and his war in Ukraine by showing up at polling stations at noon on the last voting day of a three-day election.
