- By RFE/RL
RFE/RL correspondent Christopher Miller took the pulse of some voters in Moscow as the country cast ballots to elect the president.
As Putin Cruises, Navalny And Sobchak Spar In Election-Day Standoff
Kremlin critics say the Russian election was a show, with President Vladimir Putin's victory the dully predictable final act. On election day, Aleksei Navalny and Ksenia Sobchak provided a far livelier sideshow -- but it may have done little to help the opposition's cause.
Shortly before polls closed in Moscow on March 18, Sobchak showed up at Navalny's headquarters and -- in an exchange broadcast live on the opposition leader's YouTube channel -- proposed that they join forces.
The result was not too pretty. Navalny rejected Sobchak's offer, using stark language to reiterate his accusation that she only helped the Kremlin slap a veneer of democracy on an election he has dismissed for months as "the reappointment of Vladimir Putin."
Navalny, who was barred from the ballot due to a financial-crimes conviction he contends was fabricated by the Kremlin, accused Sobchak of "endlessly lying" and said that everything she does is "repulsive."
More video of the Putin victory rally held in Moscow's Manezh Square.
- By Current Time
Current Time, the Russian-language TV channel run by RFE/RL in collaboration with VOA, is running a special election-day live broadcast, covering all the events surrounding the vote, including video from the Moscow rally celebrating Vladimir Putin's re-election.
If you're a Russian speaker, check it out.
Russians In Ukraine Blocked From Voting In Presidential Election
KYIV -- Russian voters in Ukraine were blocked from casting their ballots in Russia's presidential election on March 18, as Ukrainian authorities stepped up security outside diplomatic facilitates and nationalists staged anti-Moscow protests.
Two days prior to the election, in which President Vladimir Putin was heading for a landslide win, Ukrainian authorities announced that only Russian diplomats in Ukraine would be allowed to cast ballots at Russian diplomatic missions.
The move came in retaliation for Russia's annexation of Crimea, which on March 18 voted in a presidential election for the first time since it was taken over in 2014.
Ukrainian police on March 18 guarded the Russian Embassy in Kyiv and consular offices in Odesa, Lviv, and Kharkiv, while nationalist groups protested the election at Russian diplomatic compounds.
At one voting place in Kyiv, nationalists surrounded a woman seeking to cast her ballots, mocking her and throwing snow at her.
- By RFE/RL
Vladimir Putin, speaking not long after polls showed him winning a resounding re-election victory, thanked voters for their support and lead a chant of "Russia! Russia!" in appearance outside the Kremlin.
- By RFE/RL
As media in Russia's big cities trained their lenses on voters and ballot boxes, photographer Dmitry Markov took a stroll through the sunshine in the small town of Pskov in the country's west to see what else was going on.
Electing Not To Care: What Russians Were Doing When They Weren't Voting
- By Mike Eckel
There's at least one place in Russia where Vladimir Putin appears to have lost decisively.
That would be the Lenin Sovkhoz, the Moscow region collective farm whose longtime boss, Pavel Grudinin, was the Communist Party's candidate for the presidency.
Grudinin made his successful management of the farm-- known for strawberries, among other things-- part of his campaign platform.
In the end, he came in second to Putin, with preliminary figures showing him netting around 15.7 percent of the vote nationally.
At the Lenin farm, however, Grudinin netted 55 percent of the vote, trailed by Putin's 38.5 percent and 1.5 percent for longtime firebrand nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
- By RFE/RL
Russians celebrating Vladimir Putin's election to another 6-year term as president gathered in Moscow's Manezh Square, just off of Red Square.
It's unclear, from this photo taken by the independent TV station Dozhd, exactly how many people had gathered.
This photo is the facade of the Great Patriotic War museum in Moscow's Poklonnaya Gora park dedicated to the Soviet victory in World War II, apparently taken this evening.
"VICTORY. CRIMEA. PUTIN"