President Vladimir Putin walks out of a voting booth at a polling station during Russia's presidential election in Moscow on March 18, 2018 | Yuri Kadobnov/AFP via Getty Images Putin claims victory in presidential vote Preliminary results showed the president taking 76.6 percent of the vote, versus 11.8 percent for his nearest rival.

MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin secured a fourth presidential term on Sunday in a landslide election victory, according to state preliminary results, amid reports of widespread pressure on voters and a crackdown on the opposition.

Putin won 76.6 percent of the vote, while his nearest rival, Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin, took 11.8 percent, with 99.8 percent of the votes counted, according to the government-controlled election committee.

“We will think of the future of our great motherland, of the future of our children,” Putin told a victory rally near Red Square, before leading a flag-waving crowd in a sustained chant of “Russia! Russia!”

The absolute certainty of Putin’s election victory means that apathy, rather than one of his seven nominal rival candidates, had been the president’s biggest concern.

Alexei Navalny, the opposition figurehead, was barred from the polls over a fraud conviction he said was trumped up to prevent him from challenging Putin, and he called on supporters to boycott the election in protest. Dozens of opposition activists have been jailed or attacked by pro-Kremlin assailants since Navalny announced his intention to stand for president early last year.

The vote came amid an escalating dispute with the U.K. over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal.

Ahead of the vote, the Kremlin reportedly told officials it wanted to see the president win 70 percent of the vote with a 70 percent turnout to underscore the ex-KGB officer’s legitimacy. The presidential administration dropped its expectation of an acceptable turnout to 65 percent just days before the vote, according to insiders cited by Russian media. The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) said turnout on Sunday evening was 67.6 percent, though earlier exit polls indicated it would be 63 percent. In the 2012 election, turnout stood at 65 percent.

Golos, an independent election watchdog that the Kremlin calls a “foreign agent,” reported dozens of violations across the country, including ballot-box stuffing and irregularities with lists of registered voters. Dozens of volunteers staffed a hotline run by the organization in Moscow. “I want these elections to be fair, which isn’t always the case in our country, to put it mildly” said Olga Shelenberg, a Golos volunteer.

Ella Pamfilova, the head of the CEC, said there were “relatively few” violations on election day.

Officials were also reported to have strong-armed millions of students and government employees, as well as workers at private companies that rely on state contracts, into voting. They also pressured them to ensure that family members also cast their ballots. “Have all your lot voted yet? It’s almost time to send off our report,” read a text message, seen by POLITICO, sent to workers by management at a Moscow-based company.

Misreading Russia

Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. local time on Sunday morning in Russia’s far eastern region, with voting beginning nine hours later in Moscow. There was a holiday-like atmosphere at polling stations, where voters were offered the chance to win iPhones for the best ballot box selfies, and given the chance to purchase discount food.

"Putin has made our army great again," said Viktor, 55, outside a polling station in Moscow. "None of the other candidates are ready to rule Russia.”

Election officials installed web cameras in tens of thousands of polling stations nationwide, in what they described as a move aimed at ensuring transparency. Mass voter fraud in favor of Putin’s ruling party during the 2011 parliamentary election sparked huge anti-Putin protests in Moscow, and authorities were keen to avoid a repeat of such scenes.

Officials at a few polling stations found ways to get around the cameras, however. In the Kemerovo region in western Siberia, officials at one polling place covered the cameras with balloons, obscuring the view of the ballot box. In Nalchik, southern Russia, officials simply drew curtains over them, while other polling station officials positioned the cameras in such a manner that nothing was visible to anyone watching online.

In Moscow, where Putin received his lowest share of the vote at the 2012 presidential election, some 3,000 election observers recruited by Navalny spread out across polling stations. Sergei Boyko, the head of Navalny’s vote monitoring efforts in Moscow, said a number of observers had been removed “without due cause” from polling stations.

The vote came amid an escalating dispute with the U.K. over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who spied for MI6, and his daughter, Yulia, in southern England. Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, said Sunday it was “overwhelmingly likely” that Putin ordered the attack. The Kremlin denies the claims.

Speaking on Sunday evening, Putin’s campaign spokesman, Andrei Kondrashov, sarcastically thanked the British government, claiming Russians had flocked to the polls to show their support for the long-time Russian leader. “They misread the Russian mentality again,” he said.