As expected, following a three day ‘vote’, Vladimir Putin has once again crowned himself president of Russia.

As of 9 a.m. Moscow time, according to the central electoral commission, 99.7 per cent of ballot papers had been counted with Putin claiming 87 per cent of the vote – higher than he’s managed in any other previous election. That didn’t stop Putin calling a press conference on Sunday evening – when supposedly just 40 per cent or so of the vote had been counted – to declare himself the victor.

As his gloating press conference showed, Putin considers the democratic charade of the past three days to have been a success

Putin’s press conference was extraordinary, not just because he’d clearly dropped the pretence of the result still being unknown. Putin answered questions about Alexei Navalny’s death last month and, for the first time in many years, used Navalny’s name. He appeared to confirm the claims made by Navalny’s team that a deal to swap the Kremlin critic in a prisoner exchange had been in its final stages in the days before his death.

‘I said: “I agree [to the swap]”. But, unfortunately, what happened happened. I [agreed] only on one condition: that we exchange him and that he doesn’t come back – let him sit there abroad,’ Putin said. ‘Well, these things happen, there’s nothing to be done about it. That is life.’

In the press conference, Putin also praised the high voter turnout of 74 per cent. But despite what Putin and the Kremlin would have the Russian population believe, this turnout – if the numbers can be trusted – was not a demonstration of support for Putin’s war in Ukraine. In fact, quite the opposite.

On Sunday, thousands of people swarmed polling booths at noon across Russia’s 11 time zones and at embassies abroad to cast their votes. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, over 370,000 citizens voted over the weekend at embassies abroad. These Russians were responding to a protest call issued first by Alexei Navalny, and carried on by his wife Yulia after his death, to vote en masse at noon on Sunday as a form of protest.

The aim was not to influence the outcome of the election but to create a visible show of unity and to show Russians opposed to the regime that they weren’t alone. Many spoiled their ballots, with Navalnaya writing her late husband’s name on the ballot paper at the Russian embassy in Berlin – which had one of the largest turnouts for the protest vote.

The Russian authorities did their best to try and dismiss the ‘Noon against Putin’ movement. It wasn’t the protest vote, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said, that was responsible for the high turnout abroad: ‘They came to cast their vote, taking advantage of the opportunity that, despite all the threats of the West, was provided to them by their country: Russia.’

Within Russia, many who had supported Navalny and had, in the past, attended his rallies, received messages on Saturday over Telegram from anonymous bot accounts trying to warn them off supporting ‘extremist views’ and voting ‘in the queues’. This was according to the Russian-language opposition news site Meduza, which claimed many of its readers got in touch to report the intimidation.

Neither Putin nor the Kremlin, of course, acknowledged the other disorder that took place in Russia over the weekend. There were multiple reports of attempts by Russians to pour green paint into ballot boxes, and a few attempted arson attacks. According to the human rights group OVD-Info, at least 87 people were detained over the weekend, both thanks to disorder at polling stations and for protesting near or outside them.

As his gloating press conference showed, Putin considers the democratic charade of the past three days to have been a success. Despite his win being expected in Russia, the president needed this ‘election’ to give his rule and invasion of Ukraine the further illusion of legitimacy.

The goal of his next six years in office, he said, was to ‘achieve the goals of the special military operation’. As his willingness to utter Navalny’s name for the first time shows, Putin currently feels as strong as ever.