“Those enemy strikes haven’t been and won’t be left unpunished,” he vowed at a meeting of his Security Council.
“I’m sure that our people, the people of Russia, will respond to that with even greater cohesion,” Putin said. “Whom did they decide to scare? The Russian people? It has never happened and it will never happen.”
European Council President Charles Michel mordantly criticised Friday on the vote’s preordained nature. “Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today. No opposition. No freedom. No choice,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Russian officials said voting proceeded in an orderly fashion.