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Vladimir Putin has claimed a landslide victory in Russia’s presidential vote, as thousands in the country and around the world protested against his deepening dictatorship, the war in Ukraine and a stage-managed election that could have only one winner.
Victory for the 71-year-old was never in doubt, with all his major opponents dead, in prison or exiled, and authorities waging an unrelenting crackdown on those who publicly oppose the Kremlin or its military offensive on Ukraine.
The government-run VTsIOM pollster projected that Putin had sailed to an easy victory with 87 percent of the vote after polls closed in Russia’s western-most region of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.
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