Imagine if the Kremlin had authorized a murder of a prominent Russian exile in Boston — using a rare nerve gas manufactured by its military to attack NATO troops.

Presumably, our country would be in an uproar.

Yet President Donald Trump’s response to such an attempt in Britain earlier this month — for which our NATO ally blames Russia — has been woefully wimpy.

While the U.S. joined Britain, France, and Germany in a statement denouncing Russia, nothing was said about collective action. And while the administration announced new Russia sanctions last week — the first under this president — they were more symbolic than strong.

Even when Trump finally commented on the attack, his critique of Russia was limp and halfhearted. “A very sad situation,” the president said. “It certainly looks like the Russians were behind it.”

Trump never mentioned Vladimir Putin, or sanctions, or election interference. Never mind that British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that it’s “overwhelmingly likely” that Putin himself ordered the attack.

Trump’s refusal to criticize Putin — or to respond to malevolent Kremlin actions — has moved from the bizarre to the dangerous. Perhaps Robert Mueller will discover Trump’s reasons — the special prosecutor subpoenaed files from the Trump Organization last week, including some relating to Russia.

But unless Trump pushes back against Putin, the Russian leader will continue to smell weakness. U.S. intelligence chiefs have warned that Russian hackers will meddle in 2018 elections. More serious is the recent news that Russian cyberattacks have targeted U.S. and European nuclear power plants and water and electric systems and have the power to sabotage or shut them.

U.S. intelligence agencies have known about the hacking of utilities for months.

 So what is Trump’s problem? Does he still nurture dreams of building a Trump Tower in Moscow? Is he beholden to Russian financiers?

Or is Trump smitten with a case of autocrat envy — wishing he could operate like Putin?

 Whatever the reason, this country cannot afford to wait for the end of Mueller’s investigation to learn why the president refuses to stand up to a Russian leader who only recognizes strength.

The newly announced sanctions were against Russia’s two main intelligence agencies and a group of individuals who worked for the Russian “troll farm” that hacked the election. But they will have no impact on Putin. Most of the targets have already been sanctioned, and/or indicted by Mueller. Those indicted from the troll farm were mainly salaried employees.

“Nobody (in the Kremlin) takes (these sanctions) seriously,” I was told by Yevgenia Albats, editor of the independent New Times magazine in Moscow. “Nobody cares. Why should they?” Albats says that, except for Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Putin confidant who ran the troll factory, every individual on the new sanctions list “is a nobody.”

Last summer, a massive bipartisan vote in Congress passed harsher sanctions on Russia that were supposed to target a group of oligarchs close to Putin, affecting their overseas assets. But Trump has refused to implement those sanctions; the list has been kept secret.

 If the administration had gone after those oligarchs close to Putin, “the Kremlin would have taken it seriously,” Albats says. Didn’t happen. Question is, why?

An even bigger question is why Trump hasn’t called for a broad, governmentwide strategy to counter Russian cyber malfeasance.

When Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone, the nominee to run the National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command, was asked at Senate confirmation hearings last month about U.S. strategy to counter Russian hacking, his answer was shocking. “I would say right now they do not think much will happen to them,” he responded. “They don’t fear us.”

The departing chief of the U.S. Cyber Command, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, was equally blunt in Senate testimony in February. He said U.S. efforts to counter Russian cyber attacks were insufficient. Putin “has clearly come to the conclusion that ‘there’s little price to pay here and therefore I can continue this activity,’ ” Rogers stated.

When frustrated Democratic senators pressed Rogers about whether he had been authorized by Trump to do more to thwart Russian cyber operations where they originate, he responded:

“I haven’t been granted any additional authorities, capacity and capability.”

Of course, Rogers, and now Nakasone, can work within the limited authority they are granted. But that authority is inadequate, as even some GOP senators admit.

At the Nakasone hearing, Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse said bluntly, “We are not responding in any way that’s adequate to the challenges we face.”

In other words, the president is not responding.

At a time when Putin is bragging about new “invincible” missiles aimed at America (and Trump is rushing to increase America’s nuclear arsenal), the president could take steps to show Putin that he isn’t a patsy. Like sanctioning oligarchs. Like authorizing a new cyber strategy.

But Trump refuses to take them. And we are left asking: Why?

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.</s>MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin won a landslide re-election victory on Sunday, extending his rule over the world’s largest country for another six years at a time when his ties with the West are on a hostile trajectory.

Putin’s victory will take his political dominance of Russia to nearly a quarter of a century, until 2024, by which time he will be 71. Only Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ruled for longer. Putin has promised to use his new term to beef up Russia’s defenses against the West and to raise living standards.

In a widely expected outcome, the Central Election Commission, with just over 70 percent of the votes counted, announced that Putin, who has dominated the political landscape for the last 18 years, had won 75.9 percent of the vote.

In a victory speech near Red Square, Putin told a cheering crowd he interpreted the win as a vote of confidence in what he had achieved in tough conditions.

“It’s very important to maintain this unity. We will think about the future of our great Motherland,” said Putin, before leading the crowd in repeated chants of “Russia!” He told a meeting of supporters afterwards that difficult times were ahead, but that Russia had a chance to make “a breakthrough.”

Backed by state TV, the ruling party, and credited with an approval rating around 80 percent, his victory was never in doubt. His nearest challenger, Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin, got around 13 percent, according to partial results, while nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky got around 6 percent.

None of the seven candidates who ran against Putin posed a threat, and opposition leader Alexei Navalny was barred from running. Critics alleged that officials had compelled people to come to the polls to ensure that voter boredom at the one-sided contest did not lead to a low turnout.

Turnout figures will be closely scrutinized. Early signs suggested turnout would exceed 60 percent.

Russia’s Central Election Commission recognized that there were some irregularities, but was likely to dismiss wider criticism and declare the overall result legitimate.

The result was a vindication of his tough stance towards the West, Putin loyalists said.

“I think that in the United States and Britain they’ve understood they cannot influence our elections,” Igor Morozov, a member of the upper house of parliament, said on state television.

Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the upper house, hailed the victory as a moral one over the West.

“Our elections have proved once again ... that it’s not possible to manipulate our people,” she said. “People came together. No other country in the world has such open and transparent elections.”

Opposition leader Navalny is expected to call for anti-Putin protests demanding a re-run of an election he says was neither free nor fair. A senior opposition politician has warned they could descend into street clashes if police crack down too hard on demonstrators.

The longer-term question is whether Putin will soften his anti-Western rhetoric now the election is won.

HOSTILE RELATIONS

Putin’s bellicose language reached a crescendo before the election in a state-of-the-nation speech when he unveiled new nuclear weapons, saying they could hit almost any point in the world and evade a U.S.-built missile shield.

At odds with the West over Syria, Ukraine, allegations of Russian election meddling and cyber attacks and the poisoning in Britain of a former Russian spy and his daughter, relations between Moscow and the West are at a post Cold War low.

Russian President and Presidential candidate Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with supporters at his campaign headquarters in Moscow, Russia March 18, 2018. Yuri Kadobnov/POOL via Reuters

Putin, 65, has been in power, either as president or prime minister, since 2000.

Allies laud the former KGB agent as a father-of-the-nation figure who has restored national pride and expanded Moscow’s global clout with interventions in Syria and Ukraine.

Critics accuse him of overseeing a corrupt, authoritarian system and of illegally annexing Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, a move that isolated Russia internationally.

Western sanctions on Russia imposed over Crimea and Moscow’s backing of a pro-Russian separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine remain in place and have damaged the Russian economy, which only rebounded last year after a prolonged downturn.

Britain and Russia are also locked in a diplomatic dispute over the spy poisoning incident, and Washington is eyeing new sanctions on Moscow over allegations it interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, something Russia flatly denies.

Putin said on Sunday it was nonsense to think that Moscow would have poisoned former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain and said Moscow was ready to cooperate with London.

Officials and analysts say there is little agreement among Putin’s top policymakers on an economic strategy for his new term.

How long Putin wants to stay in power is uncertain.

The constitution limits the president to two successive terms, obliging him to step down at the end of his new mandate — as he did in 2008 after serving two four-year terms. The presidential term was extended from four to six years, starting in 2012.

Asked after his re-election if he would run for yet another term in office, Putin laughed off the idea.

Slideshow (11 Images)

“Let’s count. What, do you think I will sit (in power) until I’m 100 years old,” he said, calling the question “funny.”

Although Putin has six years to consider a possible successor, uncertainty about his long-term future is a potential source of instability in a fractious ruling elite that only he can keep in check.

Kremlin insiders say Putin has selected no heir apparent, and that any names being circulated are the product of speculation and not based on insider knowledge of Putin’s thinking.

“The longer he stays in power, the harder it will be to exit,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think tank. “How can he abandon such a complicated system, which is essentially his personal project?”</s>YEKATERINBURG, Russia (AP) - Russian voters are heading to the polls for a presidential election in which Vladimir Putin's victory is assured - the only question being how convincing his mandate will be for his fourth term.

Polls opened at 8 a.m. Sunday in Russia's Far East regions of Chukotka and Kamchatka. Voting will conclude at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT; 2 p.m. EDT) in Kaliningrad, the Baltic exclave that is Russia's westernmost region.

Putin is so certain of winning that authorities are investing instead in massive get-out-the-vote efforts to produce a turnout that would embolden the Russian leader both domestically and internationally.

Yevgeny Roizman, the mayor of Russia's fourth-largest city Yekaterinburg, says local officials and state employees have received orders "from higher up" to make sure the presidential vote turnout is over 60 percent.

A man sets a banner reads "2018 March Election of Russian President" as he prepares a polling station for Sunday's election in Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 16, 2018. There are eight candidates in Sunday's Russian presidential election, including President Vladimir Putin. With his approval rating topping 80 percent and rivals trailing far behind, Putin is set to easily win a fourth term. Putin's most vocal critic, the 41-year-old opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was barred from the race due to a criminal conviction that he calls politically motivated. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

FILE - In this file photo taken on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018, Russian TV host Ksenia Sobchak speaks about her campaign to challenge Vladimir Putin in the March 18 presidential election, during an interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia. There are eight candidates in Sunday's Russian presidential election, including President Vladimir Putin. With his approval rating topping 80 percent and rivals trailing far behind, Putin is set to easily win a fourth term. Putin's most vocal critic, the 41-year-old opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was barred from the race due to a criminal conviction that he calls politically motivated. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

People walk through a street with an election poster that reads: "Choose President - Choose Future!" in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Saturday, March 17, 2018. Just like in any other city or town in Russia, thousands of state employees in Yekaterinburg are under pressure from the management to come out to vote in Sunday's presidential election in line with the Kremlin's efforts to boost the turnout. (AP Photo/Nataliya Vasilyeva)

A woman holds a flag that reads "I love Kamchatka, we are the first!" as she prepares to cast her ballots at a polling station in Yelizovo, about 30 kilometers ( 19 miles) north-east from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, capital of Kamchatka Peninsula region, Russian Far East, Russia, on Sunday, March. 18, 2018. Polls have opened in Russia's Far East regions for the presidential election in which Vladimir Putin is seeking a fourth term in the Kremlin. (AP Photo/Alexander Petpov)</s>Vladimir Putin cruised to a landslide victory in Russia’s presidential vote, extending his 18-year rule amid escalating confrontation with the West.

The Kremlin’s longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had almost 77 percent of the vote with about 95 percent of the ballots counted, putting him on track for a new six-year term. The results represented record support for Putin, who barely campaigned before Sunday’s vote and faced no real competition in an election that even some of his seven rival candidates described as a farce.

“Thank you very much. Together, we’ll take on a great task in the name of Russia,” a triumphant Putin told a crowd of flag-waving supporters at a rally near Moscow’s Red Square Sunday evening. “Success awaits us.”

The Russian leader, 65, rules unchallenged at home even as the economy stagnates after the longest recession in two decades. Abroad, he faces spiraling conflict after the U.K. directly accused Putin of ordering the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal earlier this month. He has defied U.S. and EU sanctions over his 2014 annexation of Crimea and diplomatic pressure over Russia’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Putin’s defiance of the West has played well in the campaign with an electorate nostalgic for Russia’s superpower status.

“Putin isn’t going to retreat an inch,” said Evgeny Minchenko, a Moscow-based political consultant who advises the Kremlin. “He’ll push for maximum independence from the West and build alliances with other centers of power.”

Putin, who’s also been accused of cyber-attacks and election meddling, including in the U.S. 2016 presidential vote, secured the results despite opposition calls for a boycott. Turnout was reported high at about 67 percent.

“I came here to vote for stability,” said Larisa Kuznetsova, a 62-year-old pensioner, outside a polling station in central Moscow. “That’s what we count on from our president in such a frightening world.”

Official turnout figures in different regions of Russia are being inflated by as much as 18 percentage points, opposition leader Alexey Navalny said on Twitter, citing data compiled by his observers at polling stations. Navalny, who was barred from contesting the election, had called for a boycott of the vote in protest.

There’s been “widespread fraud” and observers have caught many instances of ballot-rigging on camera, according to Open Russia, an opposition organization founded by former oil tycoon and Kremlin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Election officials said violations were limited and didn’t influence the result.

In addition to accusing Putin, the U.K. expelled the largest number of Russian diplomats from London in 30 years. Russia retaliated by ordering out an equal number of British envoys as well as demanding the closure of the British Council cultural office and the U.K. consulate in St. Petersburg.

The U.S., Germany and France rallied behind the U.K., saying there’s “no plausible alternative explanation” to Russian responsibility for the first use of a chemical weapon on European soil since World War II. It’s unclear so far if they’ll back new measures to isolate Russia, which denies any involvement. European Union foreign ministers will discuss the crisis when they meet Monday in Brussels.

Speaking to reporters Sunday, Putin gave his most detailed public comments on the case, saying, “It’s complete nonsense to imagine that anyone in Russia could resort to such tricks ahead of the presidential elections and World Cup. It’s unthinkable.”

Putin campaign spokesman Andrei Kondrashov credited the tension with the U.K. for boosting turnout for the president with its tough line. “We need to say thank you to Great Britain because they again misread the Russian mindset,” he said, according to Interfax.

Putin’s ability to confront the West has increased after President Donald Trump’s election exposed fault lines between the U.S. and Europe and the U.K.’s vote to leave the EU, said Roderic Lyne, former British ambassador to Russia. “The West at the moment is rather fragmented because of transatlantic tensions and Brexit,” he said.

In the latest challenge, the Kremlin leader brandished new “invincible” nuclear weapons in his state-of-the-nation speech this month, amid confrontation with the U.S. over allegations Russia meddled to help Trump win. Russia has been accused of deploying cyber tools to encourage separatists in Spain’s Catalonia as well as opponents of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in elections last year.

Officials in Washington also said Thursday that Russian government-backed hackers are carrying out rolling attacks on “critical infrastructure” including the electric grid, water processing plants and air transportation facilities that are relied upon by hundreds of millions of Americans.

Confrontation ultimately could work against Putin because it’ll deprive Russia of investment and know-how needed to lift the economy out of the doldrums, said Oksana Antonenko, visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economic and Political Science. Russians, who’ve seen living standards steadily erode, are focused on issues such as low incomes and pensions, not foreign policy, according to opinion polls.

“If Putin wants Russia to build a modern economy, he can’t do that in conflict with the West,” said Antonenko. He’ll be judged at the end of his term on whether he’s improved living standards, she said.

Even so, Putin will use his next six years to assert his vision of a strong Russia, according to Joerg Forbrig, senior program director of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S.

“Putin now has a feeling of success, he feels the West is splintering,” Forbrig said by phone from Berlin. “The priority in the next term is to build on that.”

Constitutional limits ban Putin from seeking another term in 2024. Asked Sunday if he might consider running in 2030 — when he would be 77 — Putin dismissed the question as “funny,” saying “Am I going to stay around until I’m 100? No.”</s>Moscow - Vladimir Putin was Monday set for another six years in power after his landslide victory in Russia's presidential election but so far only close allies have congratulated him as Moscow's relations with the West disintegrate.

 

 Putin, who has ruled Russia for almost two decades, recorded his best election performance with 76.67 percent of the vote but rejected the possibility of staying in power indefinitely.

 

 The opposition said the results were rigged, reporting ballot stuffing and other cases of alleged fraud as the Kremlin pushed for a high turnout to give greater legitimacy to Putin's historic fourth term.

 

 Putin, who has extended his power until at least 2024 and is already Russia's longest-serving leader since Stalin, ruled out remaining president for life.

 

 "Listen to me. It seems to me that what you are saying is a bit funny," he told reporters Sunday night when asked if he saw himself running for president again in 2030.

 

 "What, am I going to sit here until I am 100 years old? No." 

 

 The Russian strongman ran against seven other candidates, but his most vocal critic Alexei Navalny was barred from the ballot for legal reasons and the final outcome was never in doubt.

 

 "I see in this (result) the confidence and hope of our people," Putin said in an address to a crowd of supporters on a square next to the Kremlin after exit polls put him on track for a resounding victory.

 

 Turnout was at more than 67 percent as authorities used both the carrot and the stick to boost engagement in the polls.

 

 Selfie competitions, giveaways, food festivals and children's entertainers were laid on at polling stations in a bid to create a festive atmosphere around the election.

 

 But employees of state and private companies reported coming under pressure to vote.

 

 According to central election commission data with 99.8 percent of ballots counted, Putin took 76.67 percent of the vote, well ahead of his nearest competitor Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin, who was on 11.79 percent.

 

 Ultra-nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky took around 5.66 percent, former reality TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak was on 1.67 percent, while veteran liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky received just over 1 percent of the vote.

 

 - 'Demand justice' -

 

 Navalny -- who called on his supporters to boycott the "fake" vote and sent more than 33,000 observers across the country to see how official turnout figures differed from those of monitors -- said there had been "unprecedented violations".

 

 Navalny's opposition movement and the non-governmental election monitor Golos reported ballot stuffing, repeat voting and Putin supporters being bussed into polling stations en masse.

 

 But the electoral commission dismissed most concerns, saying monitors sometimes misinterpret what they see.

 

 Runner-up Grudinin said the elections had been "dishonest."

 

 NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has lived in Russia after leaking classified information about the US government's surveillance programmes, tweeted a picture apparently showing ballot stuffing in a Russian school.

 

 "The ballot stuffing seen today in Moscow and elsewhere in the Russian election is an effort to steal the influence of 140+ million people," he said.

 

 "Demand justice; demand laws and courts that matter."

 

 - Xi congratulates Putin -

 

 The election was held as Russia faces increasing isolation on the world stage over a spy poisoning in Britain and a fresh round of US sanctions just as it gears up for the football World Cup in the summer.

 

 Among the few leaders to congratulate Putin so far was Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has just been handed a second term himself and has gained a path to indefinite rule after presidential term limits were lifted last week.

 

 "China is willing to work with Russia to keep promoting China-Russia relations to a higher level, provide driving force for respective national development in both countries, and promote regional and global peace and tranquility," Xi said.

 

 In Latin America, the presidents of the leftist regimes in Venezuela and Bolivia both effusively congratulated Putin on his "overwhelming" victory.

 

 Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro also commended "the glorious Russian people for its display of civic duty" while Bolivia's Evo Morales said Putin's victory "guarantees geopolitical equilibrium and world peace before the onslaught of imperialism".

 

 Since first being elected president in 2000, Putin has stamped his total authority on the world's biggest country, muzzling opposition, putting television under state control and reasserting Moscow's standing abroad. 

 

 The 65-year-old former KGB officer used an otherwise lacklustre presidential campaign to emphasise Russia's role as a major world power, boasting of its "invincible" new nuclear weapons in a pre-election speech.

 

 Putin's previous Kremlin term was marked by a crackdown on the opposition after huge protests, the Ukraine conflict, military intervention in Syria and the introduction of Western sanctions that contributed to a fall in living standards.

 

 - Nerve agent attack row -

 

 In the runup to the vote, a new crisis broke out with the West as Britain implicated Putin in the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal with a Soviet-designed nerve agent.

 

 In response, London expelled 23 Russian diplomats, prompting a tit-for-tat move by Moscow. Also this week, Washington hit Russia with sanctions for trying to influence the 2016 US election. 

 

 After his victory, Putin dismissed claims Russia was behind the poisoning in Britain as "drivel, rubbish, nonsense" but said Moscow was ready to cooperate with London in the probe.

 

 The president has said he will use his fourth term to address a litany of domestic problems including widespread poverty and poor healthcare.</s>Vladimir Putin won a landslide victory in Russia’s presidential election, receiving 76.67 percent of the vote, the central election commission said on Monday.

Putin, who has ruled Russia for almost two decades, recorded his best ever performance in Sunday’s polls, electoral officials said with 99.8 percent of ballots counted.</s>Vladimir Putin rolled to a crushing re-election victory Sunday for six more years as Russia’s president, and he told cheering supporters in a triumphant but brief speech that “we are bound for success.”

There had been no doubt that Putin would win in his fourth electoral contest; he faced seven minor candidates and his most prominent foe was blocked from the ballot.

His only real challenge was to run up the tally so high that he could claim an indisputable mandate.

With ballots from 80 percent of Russia’s precincts counted by early Monday, Putin had amassed 76 percent of the vote. Observers and individual voters reported widespread violations including ballot-box stuffing and forced voting, but the claims are unlikely to dilute the power of Russia’s longest-serving leader since Josef Stalin.

As the embodiment of Russia’s resurgent power on the world stage, Putin commands immense loyalty among Russians. More than 30,000 crowded into Manezh Square adjacent to the Kremlin in temperatures of minus-10 degrees (15-degrees F) for a victory concert and to await his words.

Putin extolled them for their support _ “I am a member of your team” _ and he promised them that “we are bound for success.”

Then he left the stage after speaking for less than two minutes, a seemingly perfunctory appearance that encapsulated the election’s predictability.

Since he took the helm in Russia on New Year’s Eve 1999 after Boris Yeltsin’s surprise resignation, Putin’s electoral power has centered on stability, a quality cherished by Russians after the chaotic breakup of the Soviet Union and the “wild capitalism” of the Yeltsin years.

But that stability has been bolstered by a suppression of dissent, the withering of independent media and the top-down control of politics called “managed democracy.”

There were widespread reports of forced voting Sunday, efforts to make Russia appear to be a robust democracy.

Among them were two election observers in Gorny Shchit, a rural district of Yekaterinburg, who told The Associated Press they saw an unusually high influx of people going to the polls between noon and 2 p.m. A doctor at a hospital in the Ural mountains city told the AP that 2 p.m. was the deadline for health officials to report to their superiors that they had voted.

“People were coming in all at once, (they) were entering in groups as if a tram has arrived at a stop,” said one of the observers, Sergei Krivonogov . The voters were taking pictures of the pocket calendars or leaflets that poll workers distributed, seemingly as proof of voting, he said.

Other examples from observers and social media included ballot boxes being stuffed with extra ballots in multiple regions; an election official assaulting an observer; CCTV cameras obscured by flags or nets from watching ballot boxes; discrepancies in ballot numbers; last-minute voter registration changes likely designed to boost turnout; and a huge pro-Putin sign in one polling station.

Election officials moved quickly to respond to some of the violations. They suspended the chief of a polling station near Moscow where a ballot-stuffing incident was reported and sealed the ballot box. A man accused of tossing multiple ballots into a box in the far eastern town of Artyom was arrested.

Overall national turnout was expected to be a little more than 60 percent, which would be several points below turnout in Putin’s electoral wins in 2000, 2004 and 2012. He did not run in 2008 because of term limits, but was appointed prime minister, a role in which he was widely seen as leader.

Putin’s most vehement foe, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, was barred from running Sunday because he was convicted of fraud in a case widely regarded as politically motivated. Navalny and his supporters had called for an election boycott but the extent of its success could not immediately be gauged.

The election came amid escalating tensions with the West, with reports that Moscow was behind the nerve-agent poisoning this month of a former Russian double agent in Britain and that its internet trolls had waged an extensive campaign to undermine the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Britain and Russia last week announced expulsions of diplomats over the spy case and the U.S. issued new sanctions.

In his first public comments on the poisoning, Putin on Sunday referred to the allegations against Russia as “nonsense.”

Moscow has denounced both cases as efforts to interfere in the Russian election. But the disputes likely worked in Putin’s favor, reinforcing the official stance that the West is infected with “Russophobia” and determined to undermine both Putin and traditional Russian values.

The election took place on the fourth anniversary of the 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, one of the most dramatic manifestations of Putin’s drive to reassert Russia’s power.

Crimea and Russia’s subsequent support of separatists in eastern Ukraine led to an array of U.S. and European sanctions that, along with falling oil prices, damaged the Russian economy and slashed the ruble’s value by half. But Putin’s popularity remained strong, apparently buttressed by nationalist pride.

In his next six years, Putin is likely to assert Russia’s power abroad even more strongly. Just weeks ago, he announced that Russia has developed advanced nuclear weapons capable of evading missile defenses. The Russian military campaign that bolsters the Syrian government is clearly aimed at strengthening Moscow’s foothold in the Middle East, and Russia eagerly eyes any reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula as an economic opportunity.

At home, Putin must face how to groom a successor or devise a strategy to circumvent term limits, how to diversify an economy still dependent on oil and gas, and how to improve medical care and social services in regions far removed from the cosmopolitan glitter of Moscow.

Authorities struggled against voter apathy, putting many of Russia’s nearly 111 million voters under intense pressure to cast ballots.

Yevgeny, a 43-year-old mechanic voting in central Moscow, said he briefly wondered whether it was worth voting.

“But the answer was easy … if I want to keep working, I vote,” he said, speaking on condition that his last name not be used out of fear his employer _ the Moscow city government _ would find out.

First-time voters in Moscow were given free tickets for pop concerts and health authorities were offering free cancer screenings.

Voters appeared to be turning in out in larger numbers Sunday than in the last presidential election in 2012, when Putin faced a serious opposition movement and there were instances of multiple voting, ballot stuffing and coercion.

Navalny, whose group also monitored the vote, dismissed Putin’s challengers on Sunday’s ballot as “puppets.” He urged a boycott of the vote and vowed to continue defying the Kremlin with street protests.

Ukraine, insulted by the decision to hold the election on the anniversary of Crimea’s annexation, refused to let ordinary Russians vote. Ukraine security forces blocked the Russian Embassy in Kiev and consulates elsewhere as the government protested the voting in Crimea, whose annexation is still not internationally recognized.

Ukrainian leaders are also angry over Russian support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed at least 10,000 people since 2014.

Polls show that most Russians view the takeover of the Black Sea peninsula as a major achievement despite subsequent Western sanctions.

“Who am I voting for? Who else?” said Putin supporter Andrei Borisov, 70, a retired engineer in Moscow. “The others, it’s a circus.”

The Central Election Commission also claimed it had been the target of a hacking attempt from 15 unidentified nations that was deterred by authorities.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>Vladimir Putin sailed to electoral victory on Sunday, winning a huge popular mandate for a fourth presidential term at a time of escalating tensions between Russia and the West.

In a widely expected outcome, the Central Election Commission, with just in excess of 70 per cent of the votes counted, announced that Putin had won 75.9 per cent of the vote, a marked increase on the 64 per cent he won at the last election, in 2012.

None of the seven candidates running against the incumbent president posed a serious threat. Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most popular opposition leader, was barred from the ballot. Opposition groups said the election was marred by widespread fraud, but the Russian election commission said irregularities had not significantly altered the result of the vote.

Mr Putin’s victory will extend his time in office until 2024, when he will be 71 and Russia’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin. During the election campaign he pledged to continue to boost Russia’s military might if he won a fourth term, to defend the country against hostile outside forces.

In his annual state-of-the-nation speech early this month he unveiled an array of advanced nuclear weaponry that Kremlin critics say will unleash a new cold-war arms race.

Tensions with the West, already badly strained by the Kremlin’s aggressive policies in Ukraine and alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election, have reached breaking point this month following the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in the UK.

Russian officials have denied involvement in the attack on Sergei Skripal, in Wiltshire, and cast the UK accusations as a provocation designed to upset the election campaign.

On Sunday, Putin dismissed British accusations of Russia’s involvement in the poisoning as “nonsense”, but added that Moscow is ready to co-operate with London in the investigation.

On Sunday night a jubilant crowd of Putin supporters flocked to a square near the Kremlin to celebrate the election victory. Russians had consolidated around the national leader in response to outside pressure, said Andrei Kondrashov, press secretary for Mr Putin’s election campaign team. “Every time Russia faces indiscriminate and unproven accusations about something or other , it makes the Russian people unite around a central force. Today that central force is definitely Putin.” Additional reporting: PA and Reuters</s>Voters in Russia go to the polls on March 18 in a presidential election that is all but certain to secure President Vladimir Putin a fourth term in office.

The 65-year-old incumbent is riding a wave of government-stoked popularity on the fourth anniversary of Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and in the wake of a military intervention in Syria that has been played up on state-controlled television as a patriotic success.

The election comes as Russia's relations with Britain are highly strained over the nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury of a former Russian spy that London blames on Moscow.

In addition, the United States on March 15 imposed yet another round of sanctions on Russian firms and individuals in connection with what Washington says was Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

These tensions, however, only bolster Putin's popular image as a defender of Russia and give credence to his assertions that Russia is surrounded by foreign enemies.

The other seven candidates in the presidential election trail far behind Putin in opinion polls, with Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin polling 7 percent and journalist Ksenia Sobchak at just 2 percent. According to the Kremlin-friendly All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion, Putin is polling 69 percent support.

According to a Gallup poll, taken late in 2017, 80 percent of Russians approve of Putin's leadership, while only 40 percent have confidence in the reliability of Russia's elections.

Polls close at 6 p.m. GMT on March 18 in Kaliningrad, Russia's westernmost territory, with preliminary results expected shortly afterward.

Other candidates include nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky, nationalist Sergei Baburin, Communists of Russia candidate Maksim Suraikin, centrist Boris Titov, and liberal Grigory Yavlinsky.

Putin's only significant potential rival, opposition politician and anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny, has been barred from participating in the election because of a felony embezzlement conviction that has been widely seen as trumped up and politically motivated.

Navalny, who has dismissed the election as "the reappointment of Vladimir Putin," has called on voters to boycott. The Kremlin and local authorities have launched a wide-ranging carrot-and-stick effort to boost turnout in order to bolster the appearance of the election's legitimacy.

Russian media have cited unidentified Kremlin sources as saying the government was aiming for a turnout of 70 percent, with 70 percent of the vote going to Putin.

Security will be intensified across the country. Police in Moscow have announced plans to put 17,000 officers, National Guard troops, and other security personnel on the streets on election day. Polling stations will be checked by bomb-sniffing dogs.

The Central Election Committee refused to accredit independent election monitors organized by Navalny, as well as those organized by the Golos election-monitoring NGO.

The campaign has been low-key, with Putin largely declining to participate. The other candidates held a series of nationally televised "debates" that frequently deteriorated into shouting matches, name-calling, and fisticuffs.

Putin, who has been president or prime minister since 1999, would be 71 when the six-year term expires in 2024. Under the current constitution, he would not be eligible to seek another consecutive term, but he could repeat the tactic he used in 2008 when he allowed Dmitry Medvedev to take the presidency for one term while he continued to wield decisive power as prime minister.

If no candidate secures a majority, a second round of voting would be held on April 8.

With reporting by BBC, Reuters, Time, and TASS</s>Long before it happened, Russia’s ruling party had already called it “the ultimate victory.”

On March 18, Russians go to the polls where they will – without doubt – re-elect President Vladimir Putin to a fourth leadership term.

The race is technically contested. Seven other candidates are participating. They include a 34-year-old former reality TV star who admits that “when money gets into her hands, she spends everything” on clothes.

But with the country’s television media under tight Kremlin control and the outspoken dissident Alexander Navalny barred from the ballot, no one besides Putin is expected to garner even double-digit support.

My research as a scholar of Russian and Soviet history shows that there is no escaping the fact that Putin is genuinely popular. Also, that his whole administrative apparatus has always been prepared to invest significant resources in making him appear even more revered than he actually is.

Putin’s efforts to uphold the trappings of democracy, even while asserting his right to “manage” Russia’s democratic process, has led to a situation where – according to the very constitutional limits he has previously endorsed – this upcoming electoral victory should be his last.

That means that in a matter of days, Putin, the man that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has compared to a god, calling him “a leader of the political Olympus,” will turn into a lame duck, albeit one with a six-year tenure.

Putin has sidestepped this situation once before. Winning his first presidential campaign in 2000, Putin served two consecutive four-year terms – all that the Russian constitution allowed. As the second stint approached its end, debate swirled over whether the leader would consent to step down or defy the law and stay in place.

He did neither. In a move that could only be taken by someone with both an eerie amount of confidence in his own personal power and an astonishingly long-term political vision, Putin agreed to support his then-prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, for president, in return for Medvedev naming Putin his number two.

Back then, in 2008, many pundits assumed that lawyerly Medvedev, once in office, might attempt to distance himself from his former boss. He projected a young, modern, more democratic vibe. He opened a Twitter and Facebook account, used an iPhone and iPad, and once split an order of fries with President Barack Obama at a burger joint, while on a state visit to the U.S. in 2010.

But Putin continued to call the shots. His hand, in particular, was seen in Medvedev’s decision to pass a law lengthening future presidential terms from four years to six. Then, in 2012, Putin regained the top political office, all seemingly without having violated the tenets of democracy.

Such a bait-and-switch would be more difficult to engineer a second time. At the end of another presidential term, Putin will be 71 – an unlikely age to cede top office but stay on in a subordinate role. It would be particularly difficult to find a sufficiently compliant stand-in. Even Medvedev, who has continued to serve as Putin’s prime minister, cannot be counted on to be so accommodating once again.

Putin could, of course, decide to follow China’s example.

On March 11, President Xi Jinping succeeded in winning the approval of the National People’s Congress to abolish term limits on the office of the executive, which would have restricted him to serving for only 10 years. Xi has said that he needs more time to oversee the transformation of China into a “mighty force” to lead the world.

Putin has made no bones about his similar mission for Russia and has repeatedly insisted that building a “great power” country requires great political stability.

“Strong President, strong Russia” read pro-Putin campaign billboards across the country, the same message declared by one observer in a fawning documentary of Putin released in March entitled “World Order 2018.”

But Putin has also invested a certain amount of energy in honoring the appearance of democracy, more so than Xi.

This attention to democratic political ritual frequently perplexes Western analysts, as it co-exists with a willingness to manipulate such rituals behind the scenes. Elections might be carefully controlled and the most outspoken opposition silenced, turnout figures might be doctored and results might be boosted to show more unanimity. Nevertheless, Putin has always claimed to stand “as a beacon for the interests of Russia” and its people. And he has always linked these claims to the democratic spectacle of elections, no matter how staged.

Guarding Against Revolution From Above

Official Russian media reaction to Xi, however, suggests that the Kremlin could be positioning itself to argue that any decision by Putin to toss aside constitutional constraints could still be cast as democratic, rather than authoritarian.

The official Russian Information Agency, in an article about Xi, sounded a regretful note about his decision to violate measures intended to prevent “the excessive concentration of power in a single pair of hands.”

However, the author went on to argue that Xi’s goal was to protect the country at a critical moment of evolution. The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda echoed the idea that Xi was not acting because of “personal ambitions” but rather in response to “societal demand.”

The Russian Information Agency also explicitly compared Russia to China, while arguing that a leader’s consolidation of power could be justified in terms of a need to wage war against greedy elites. Both countries, the article said, are struggling against “phenomenal growth in elite corruption,” the formation of cliques who consider themselves “untouchable,” and an increase in the number of wealthy citizens who feel “more loyal to the West, than to their own country.”

Putin is known for coming to power and quickly persuading Russia’s fractious elites to fall in line or suffer serious consequences. Leading Russia scholars ranging from Miami University’s Karen Dawisha to Princeton’s Stephen Kotkin, claim that Putin currently heads a powerful, unified kleptocracy. These recent articles from inside Russia, however, suggest a certain Kremlin uneasiness about the enduring loyalty of its billionaire clientele.

American journalists, prone to searching for hints of opposition to Putin from below, tend to forget that in Russia, major political change has always originated from above.

Even the Russian Revolution itself began, not with an uprising of the people, but with the efforts of a group of aristocratic elites to persuade the ineffectual Nicholas II to abdicate in favor of his brother in February 1917. In one of the great ironies of history, the brother refused to take power without a popular vote, and the aristocrats who had been desperate to find some way of preserving the Romanov Dynasty accidentally ended up bringing about its demise.

So, too, the final collapse of the Soviet Union occurred after then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin met secretly with the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus, and the three men simply decided to announce that they no longer recognized the USSR or Soviet chief Mikhail Gorbachev’s authority.

The Kremlin’s language in regard to Xi already seems to be cautioning Russia’s rich and powerful to think twice about conspiring behind the scenes. And some appear to share such suspicions.

Many Komsomolskaya Pravda readers voiced online support for China’s decision to abolish term limits. In the comments section, one pensioner wrote: “It’s time for us to do the same. God forbid that [other candidates besides Putin] win an election. They will sell our nation out in a nanosecond to their American masters.”

This article originally appeared in The Conversation. Read the original article.

Cynthia Hooper is an Associate Professor of History at College of the Holy Cross
Voters in Russia cast their votes for the President of Russia. Incumbent Vladimir Putin wins a fourth term in office, with just over 75% of the popular vote.