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Russia elections: Protesters arrested on final day of vote set to give Vladimir Putin fifth term - BBC News Russia elections: Protesters arrested on final day of vote set to give Vladimir Putin fifth term - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Vladimir Putin has been Russia's dominant political figure since his election as president in 2000, serving two terms and then a four-year stint as prime minister, before resuming the presidency in 2012 and winning re-election in 2018 - against only token opposition. Vitaly Shevchenko
Since then, Russia's authorities have further tightened control over the media, thereby muffling an embryonic opposition movement. BBC Monitoring
Putin has also adopted a stridently nationalist course and appealed to memories of Soviet-era power to shore up domestic support. Moscow has launched a wide-ranging campaign telling residents of occupied parts of Ukraine to vote in Russia's presidential election.
The president presents himself as a strong leader who took Russia out of the economic, social and political crisis of the 1990s, and defends Russia's national interests, particularly against alleged Western hostility. For the first time, the national vote is taking place over three days (15 - 17 March), but additional early voting has already begun in the occupied parts of four Ukrainian regions: Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk.
Opponents and critics at home and abroad accuse him of undermining Russia's institutions, halting democratic development, and entrenching rule by a narrow, wealthy elite. One resident complained of pro-Russian collaborators with ballot boxes going from house to house looking for voters accompanied by armed soldiers.
He unleashed Europe's biggest war since World War Two in February 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin will certainly win another term of office, but a high turnout would help the Kremlin's efforts to legitimise his continued rule.
You can read more about Vladimir Putin here. It would also be used to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin is one of four candidates on the ballot, but none of the others poses a realistic challenge.
All of his most outspoken critics have either been forced into exile, jailed, or have died.
Read more on this story here.
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