Putin Warns Russia Won’t Stop After Predictable Election Win
- President extends his rule with 87% in tightly controlled vote
- China’s Xi congratulated Putin, as Europeans criticized vote
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A defiant Vladimir Putin said Russia won’t be stopped from pursuing its goals after a presidential election whose outcome was pre-determined and which handed him a record level of support.
“No matter how much anybody wanted to suppress us, our will, our consciousness, nobody in history has ever succeeded, they have not succeeded now and they will never succeed,” Putin told supporters in Moscow late Sunday. All the major “and in some areas grandiose plans” that he set out before the election “will certainly be achieved,” he said.