Let's bring you some reaction from Western governments that's been coming in after Russian exit polls projected a predictable landslide win for Vladimir Putin.

The White House national security council spokesperson says: "The elections are obviously not free nor fair given how Mr. Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him."

Germany's foreign ministry, writing on X, says: "The pseudo-election in Russia is neither free nor fair, the result will surprise nobody."

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

The exit polls are uncannily close to the initial results announced by Central Electoral Commission head chief Ella Pamfilova.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin - 15,759,224 votes cast. 87.97%," she told Russian state TV.

Turnout was 74.22%, she declared.

With 30% of the vote counted, the commission gives the other three candidates between 3% and 4%.

But central to this vote will be the framing of voting from occupied Ukrainian territories. In Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, the commission has awarded Putin 94.12% of the vote, in Kherson 88.12, and in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia he is also given more than 90%.

Tomorrow Putin is widely expected to celebrate the 10th anniversary since Russia annexed Crimea, having seized it from Ukraine weeks earlier. There too, election officials claim he has won more than 93% of the vote.

Ukraine has condemned voting in occupied areas illegitimate and reports suggest ballot boxes were taken from house to house by pro-Russian collaborators accompanied by armed soldiers.

You could be forgiven for not noticing there were three other candidates on the ballot.

That's because none of the three were credible opponents as they were all authorised by the Kremlin and have all steered clear of criticising Putin.

The only real Kremlin critics are either in exile, in jail, or are now dead.

Communist Nikolai Kharitonov is on course for 4.6-4.7% of the vote according to the two exit polls.

Deputy parliamentary speaker Vladislav Davankov is projected to win 3.6%-4.2%.

Leonid Slutsky of the nationalist LDPR is set to come fourth with 2.5-3%.

One man who did attract popular support, Boris Nadezhdin, was barred from running a month before the election.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has hit out at his Russian counterpart in a nightly video address, saying Putin was "sick from power" and "doing everything to rule forever."

"There is no legitimacy in this imitation of elections and there cannot be, said Zelensky.

"There is no evil he will not commit to prolong his personal power," he added.

"This person should be on trial in The Hague. That's what we have to ensure."

Steve Rosenberg
BBC Russia editor

Unpredictability has become a feature of life in Russia.

But that does not apply to elections.

When Russian state TV flashed initial results showing that Vladimir Putin had won re-election with nearly 88% of the vote, this official landslide came as no surprise.

Elections in Russia are designed and carried out to ensure that Putin wins…and wins big.

A correspondent on Russian state TV reacted with excitement: “This is an incredible level of support and unity around the figure of Vladimir Putin,” he said, “and a signal to Western countries”.

Voting has now closed across Russia, but Russians living abroad will continue to vote at their country's embassies until 20:00 local time.

As we've reported, exit polls are giving Vladimir Putin a predictable landslide victory.

Here are some pictures of people voting across Russia.

Although Putin is popular among many Russians, he faced no real challengers in this election and his fifth term has essentially been a given.

Image source, AFP

Image source, AFP

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Image source, AFP

As expected, Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to win a fifth term by a landslide of 87%, according to an exit poll published by Russian public opinion research centre VCIOM.

A second exit poll gives him 87.8% of the vote.

Voting has just ended in the westernmost region of Kaliningrad.

More than eight million voters have cast their ballots online in this presidential election, according to an election commission official.

This is the first time that electronic voting has been used in a Russian presidential vote and one of those to take part was Vladimir Putin, who was filmed voting with a single click on a keyboard on Friday.

The head of independent monitoring group Golos (Voice) said earlier that the use of electronic voting made the whole election even less open to public scrutiny.

The system was used in parliamentary elections three years ago in seven regions and opposition candidates at the time said it deprived them of victory.

Image source, Reuters

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has finally voted at the Russian embassy in Berlin, having queued there for several hours.

As she left she told reporters she had written "Navalny" on the ballot. Her husband died in an Arctic penal colony last month and was barred from standing in this election as well as the presidential vote six years ago.

"It cannot be that a month before the election, during the campaign, that Putin's main opponent, who was already in prison has been killed," she said.

Navalnaya has backed a campaign for Russian voters to take part in a “Noon against Putin” protest action.

As supporters chanted "Yulia, we're with you," she thanked her fellow Russians for queuing for so long.

She was earlier photographed presenting her passport before entering the embassy and appeared to wave as she passed the control point.

Image source, Reuters

Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor

Image source, Reuters

The organisers of today's "Noon against Putin" protest have praised voters for turning out at midday to register their opposition to the Russian leader and an election that they say is fixed.

There was a clear spike in voters at polling stations in Moscow and St Petersburg and in several other cities including Perm, Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk.

There were also big queues at embassies in Germany, Latvia, Armenia, Turkey and many other countries with large expat communities.

But can we be sure they were protesting?

In Russia, protesters were urged not to carry placards or shout slogans so as to avoid arrest, and we already know that dozens of people have been detained. The mere fact they were turning up at noon was the point, the organisers have argued.

Equally, Russian state media have posted videos of big queues in Berlin and Istanbul claiming they proved the validity of the vote.

Reporters on the ground say many of the voters in both those cities were protesters, although not all. The likelihood is that the reason most turned up at that appointed time was to make a point of protest.

Will Vernon
BBC News, Washington DC

A couple of hundred people are queuing outside the Russian Embassy in Washington DC to “vote” in this tightly-controlled election in which no genuine opposition is allowed.

Many of them are holding anti-Putin banners and flags. They’ve come here for the “Noon Against Putin” - supporters of Alexei Navalny called on Russians to attend polling stations at midday and register any kind of protest vote against Vladimir Putin.

Like in many other Russian embassies around the world, a polling station is open here for Russians living in the US to cast their votes.

One protestor, Nadya, is wearing a badge with the Ukrainian flag on it. “This election is a show,” she tells me, and adds “Putin has decided to elect himself”.

Nadya says today’s event is a good opportunity to show how many Russians at home and abroad don’t support the Kremlin.

Many of the Russians here today were forced to leave Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago: some feared being mobilised and sent to the front, others fled mounting repression.

Some simply didn't feel comfortably living in a country that had launched such a war against its neighbour.

Voting for the presidential election is continuing in western parts of Russia as well as at Russian embassies across Europe.

Here are some of the images we've been seeing of long queues outside polling stations at around noon in various countries.

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Image source, AFP

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

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Image source, Getty Images

From a lowly KGB colonel to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin's right-hand man and successor, the tale of Vladimir Putin’s rise to power is second only to his extraordinary reign.

Putin has served either as president or prime minister for nearly a quarter of a century – making him the longest-serving leader in modern Russian history since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

In the year 2000, a 47-year-old Vladimir Putin was sworn in as president of Russia.

Since then, he’s been inaugurated four more times, and is on course to win his fifth term in office today, keeping him in power until at least 2030.

He spent four years as prime minister from 2008 due to a two-term limit imposed by the Russian constitution, during which time he installed Dmitry Medvedev – now chairman of Russia’s security council – as president.

Image source, Getty Images

Despite earlier promises to the contrary, in 2020, Putin changed these rules to give himself a clean slate to run again in 2024 by "switching back to zero" his previous terms.

At the time, opposition figures denounced the vote, saying he was aiming to be "president for life”.

Indeed, the revised term limit means Putin could run again in 2030. By the end of that six-year term, he would be 84.

Frances Read
Reporting from outside London's Russian embassy

Image source, Reuters

There’s a queue here that stretches back as far as the eye can see. People stand in groups. There are families, young people and older.

They’re here to vote, but many we spoke to also said they were here as part of the so-called “midday protests” put forward by Yulia Navalnaya.

The aim was to undermine the almost inevitable announcement of an easy and large victory for Putin.

Image source, Reuters

Because of the length of the queue in London, it’s not certain that everyone here today will have chance to vote.

In Russia, large numbers gathering at once would be seen as unauthorised mass event. That’s not the case in London.

The Russian embassy has said on social media that voting would continue in London until 20:00 GMT this evening.

Image source, Reuters

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Earlier today, Russian news agency Tass reported that two petrol bombs were thrown into the courtyard of the Russian embassy in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, where voting in the presidential election has been taking place.

The Moldovan police say they have detained a man. No injuries were reported after the incident.

"A man threw two containers of flammable substances over the fence of the Russian Embassy in Chisinau," police have said in a statement.

The police have said the 54-year-old Moldovan claims to hold Russian citizenship, although this has not yet been verified by the authorities.

They say he justified his actions by saying he has "some dissatisfaction" with Russia's authorities.

Moldova last week said it protested against Russia's decision to open several polling stations in the separatist Transnistria region for the Russian presidential election.

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

We've just seen this video footage of the moment Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was applauded by crowds outside the Russian embassy in Berlin.

Some people can be heard chanting her name as she stands with a queue of people on the last day of the presidential elections.

As we've been reporting, Yulia Navalnaya has called for election day protests against President Vladimir Putin and has asked people to form long queues at polling stations as part of the protest.

Will Vernon
BBC News, Washington DC

Image source, Getty Images

Another six years of Putin as President will almost certainly leave US-Russian relations unchanged – at first glance.

The relationship is at an all-time low: Washington is backing Ukraine with money and weapons, Joe Biden has called Vladimir Putin a “killer” and a “war criminal,” the two Presidents haven’t spoken for over two years, hundreds of US sanctions have been applied, and officials here will continue to view Russia as a significant threat to the national security of America and its closest allies.

But it takes two to tango. And there’s one man who often behaves as though he’d quite like to do a dance with President Putin: Donald Trump.

Image source, REUTERS/Jay Paul

Trump has repeatedly praised the Kremlin leader and is sceptical about supporting Ukraine. After the two met this month, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Trump “would not give a penny” to help the Ukrainians if he regains the Presidency.

Trump’s comments about Nato, too, are music to Vladimir Putin’s ears. The former President has poured scorn on the basic principle of the military alliance – the article on mutual defence of members. President Biden calls that “outrageous and dangerous.”

Could US-Russia relations fundamentally shift if Donald Trump returns to the White House? It’s possible. But any moves to improve ties with Moscow, or sacrifice Ukraine, would likely be met with harsh resistance: both Congress and America’s allies abroad would push back hard.

Francis Scarr
BBC Monitoring

We can expect to see the first results from the Russian election emerge at 1800 GMT, which is when the final polling stations close in Kaliningrad, Russia's most western region.

However, much of the counting will already have taken place, since polling stations in parts of Siberia and Russia's far east closed much earlier due to the regions being several hours ahead of Moscow.

This year millions of Russians have also cast their votes electronically – a process condemned by the opposition as impossible to monitor. This is likely to speed up the overall counting process.

When Putin won his last election in 2018, it was late into the night when he claimed victory and thanked supporters at a rally in central Moscow. By then around 50% of votes had been counted.

At around 11 O'clock the next morning, Central Electoral Commission chief Ella Pamfilova announced that Putin had won more than 76% of the vote with almost all ballots accounted for.

This year the final results must be published by 28 March and the president's inauguration is expected to take place in early May.

Sergei Goryashko
BBC News Russian

Image source, Getty Images

Many believe it’s a foregone conclusion that the incumbent Vladimir Putin will claim victory and become president for the fifth time.

So why is the Kremlin going to the trouble of staging the election?

• Show of support

Elections in Russia are rarely nail-biting events, but they are important to legitimise those in power and to show that the opinion of the people matters.

This time it is especially important for Vladimir Putin not only to win, but also to see a high turnout at polling stations and a high proportion of support, as the country is involved in a full-scale war which will have lasting consequences both for Russia and for the wider world.

• The war and the election

Putin has appeared at many events during his campaign, avoiding talking about the “special military operation” - Moscow’s term for the invasion of Ukraine.

Even when left out of the campaign, the war is a key component of media narratives and Russians cannot avoid it.

High turnout and high support for the president will add legitimacy to his subsequent decisions, many of which will be directly linked to the invasion.

• What is likely to change?

There are no independent opinion polls in Russia and most Russians get their news from state media, which is heavily biased in favour of Vladimir Putin and his policies.

Yet experts believe that more Russians are sceptical about the government than it may appear, but they are too afraid to speak out.

The most likely outcome of this election is a convincing victory for Putin, at least on paper.

But a low turnout will mean that support for the president has weakened and this in turn may bring even tighter state controls and further slide Russia into an atmosphere of fear and oppression.

It is being reported that the authorities have detained more than 74 people in 17 cities across Russia for protest actions linked to the presidential election.

This latest figure came from the OVD-Info human rights monitoring group, which earlier said more than 50 people had been arrested.

The BBC has not been able to verify this information, and it is not clear on what basis any arrests have been made and whether or not they directly relate to the "noon against Putin" protests.