Vladimir Putin has rolled to a crushing re-election victory for six more years as Russia's president, and he told cheering supporters in a triumphant but brief speech that "we are bound for success".
There had been no doubt that Putin would win in his fourth electoral contest; he faced seven minor candidates and his most prominent foe was blocked from the ballot.
His only real challenge was to run up the tally so high that he could claim an indisputable mandate.
With ballots from 80 per cent of Russia's precincts counted by early on Monday, Putin had amassed 76 per cent of the vote.
Observers and individual voters reported widespread violations including ballot-box stuffing and forced voting, but the claims are unlikely to dilute the power of Russia's longest-serving leader since Josef Stalin.
As the embodiment of Russia's resurgent power on the world stage, Putin commands immense loyalty among Russians. More than 30,000 crowded into Manezh Square adjacent to the Kremlin in temperatures of minus 10 degrees for a victory concert and to await his words.
Putin extolled them for their support - "I am a member of your team" - and he promised them that "we are bound for success".
Then he left the stage after speaking for less than two minutes, a seemingly perfunctory appearance that encapsulated the election's predictability.
Since he took the helm in Russia on New Year's Eve 1999 after Boris Yeltsin's surprise resignation, Putin's electoral power has centred on stability, a quality cherished by Russians after the chaotic break-up of the Soviet Union and the "wild capitalism" of the Yeltsin years.
But that stability has been bolstered by a suppression of dissent, the withering of independent media and the top-down control of politics called "managed democracy".
There were widespread reports of forced voting on Sunday, efforts to make Russia appear to be a robust democracy.
Among them were two election observers in Gorny Shchit, a rural district of Yekaterinburg, who told The Associated Press they saw an unusually high influx of people going to the polls between noon and 2pm.
"People were coming in all at once, (they) were entering in groups as if a tram has arrived at a stop," said one of the observers, Sergei Krivonogov . The voters were taking pictures of the pocket calendars or leaflets that poll workers distributed, seemingly as proof of voting, he said.
Other examples from observers and social media included ballot boxes being stuffed with extra ballots in multiple regions and discrepancies in ballot numbers.
Overall national turnout was expected to be a little more than 60 per cent, which would be several points below turnout in Putin's electoral wins in 2000, 2004 and 2012. He did not run in 2008 because of term limits, but was appointed prime minister, a role in which he was widely seen as leader.
Putin's most vehement foe, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, was barred from running on Sunday because he was convicted of fraud in a case widely regarded as politically motivated.
Australian Associated Press
