Two years into the war in Ukraine, Putin dominates Russia’s political landscape and none of the other three candidates on the ballot paper present any credible challenge
A woman casts her ballot as service members register to vote during Russia's presidential election, in Moscow, on March 15.Russians cast their ballots across the country’s 11 time zones on Friday, the start of a three-day election that is almost certain to hand Vladimir Putin six more years at the helm of the world’s biggest nuclear power.
In Yakutsk, an eastern Siberian city where the temperature was minus 18 degrees Celsius, the descendent of a Yukaghir shaman asked spirits to bring good luck to the winner of the election during a ceremony at one polling station. Three children were killed by Ukrainian shelling of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, the mayor said. Another was killed in the Russian region of Belgorod – a reminder of the toll of the war.
Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of conflict in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv’s forces on one side and pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russian proxies on the other. But in Russia the war has helped Putin tighten his grip on power and boost his popularity with Russians, according to polls and interviews with senior Russian sources., died suddenly in an Arctic penal colony last month and other Kremlin critics are exiled or in jail. The opposition says the vote is a sham.