Russian President Vladimir Putin was assured of winning re-election today after the vote was declared valid.
The Central Election Commission said four hours before polls closed in the world's largest country that voter turnout had passed the 50 per cent level needed to make the election legal.
"Since voting is still going on we can expect turnout will be considerably higher than 60 per cent," Commission chief Mr Alexander Veshnyakov told a news conference.
Ruthless political manoeuvring has put the 51-year-old former KGB spy out of reach of five rivals, handing him tsar-like powers to pull the world's largest country out of the mire left after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
The only real threat to Mr Putin's re-election was that less than 50 per cent of the 109 million-strong electorate would vote.
The election seals Mr Putin's grip on power, giving him four years to push through promised reforms to bring a measure of wealth and stability to Russia's masses, whose living standards plunged in the turmoil that followed the Soviet collapse.
December's election to the State Duma, or lower house, was won by pro-Kremlin MPs. And Mr Putin's government, appointed last week, is stacked with apolitical technocrats certain to do their president's bidding.