YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. With 99.43% of ballots counted as of 7:00 a.m. Moscow time, Russian presidential race frontrunner and incumbent President Vladimir Putin leads the 2024 presidential race with 87.32 % of the vote, TASS reports citing the Russian Central Election Commission’s official website.

Communist Party candidate Nikolay Kharitonov is the runner-up with 4.32%, followed by the New People party candidate Vladislav Davankov with 3.79%. LDPR candidate Leonid Slutsky is fourth, garnering 3.19%.

A record number of people have voted in this election. More than 74% of Russia’s 112.3 million voters cast their ballots between March 15 and 17, the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) said on Sunday. This is the highest engagement in the nation’s modern history, unseen since 1991.

It was the first time that presidential elections in Russia were held over three days. Residents of almost 30 Russian regions, including Moscow, also had the opportunity to vote online.