How the West reacted to the results of the elections in Russia

Financial Times

"Moscow thanks the UK for helping Putin win a brilliant election victory" - this is the title of one of the articles about the presidential elections in Russia. The diplomatic scandal due to the poisoning in Britain of the former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, which erupted on the eve of the election, contributed to raising the turnout. According to political scientists, this reminded Russians that they are in a besieged fortress - Putin actively exploited this topic at the final stage of his campaign. "Once again, we were pressured exactly at the moment when we needed to mobilize. Because whenever Russia is indiscriminately accused of anything indiscriminately, everything that the Russian people are doing is united around the center of power. The center of power is, of course, Putin today, "the press secretary of Putin's election headquarters, Andrei Kondrashov, quotes the FT as saying.

Putin will now be in power longer than Leonid Brezhnev, by the end of his rule the country was saturated with a sense of political and economic stagnation, writesEuropean editor FT Tony Barber in the article "There is no hope for liberal reforms in Putin's Russia." But for Putin, the lesson learned from Gorbachev's actions, trying to change something in the USSR, is that liberal reforms and open foreign policy lead to a social crisis inside the country and undermine Russia's position in the international arena. And many Russians share this opinion, although from the political and economic point of view under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Russia has experienced the period of greatest freedom since the early 1920s, Barber said. Therefore, "whatever changes occur in Russia in the near future, they are unlikely to resemble the liberalization of the late 1980s - early 1990s," he said.

The Wall Street Journal

It is thanks to foreign policy, which, coupled with the increase in the combat capability of the Russian army, is part of the efforts of the "former KGB officer to increase Russia's prestige in the international arena," Putin is so popular among the people, the WSJ notes . The newspaper quotes Russians who voted for Putin, who praise him for raising Russia from his knees. But this does not prevent them from complaining about economic problems. "I believe in Putin, but my purse does not believe in him," the opinion of the 31-year-old Valery Semyonov, who gave his vote for the president, leads WSJ;he came to Moscow from Siberia, hoping to become an actor, and now he works as an intern at a bank. "I want to believe that he will bring a bright future to Russia and in his last term will do everything he has not done yet."

Les Echos

Putin was "re-elected in the atmosphere of the Cold War, " the French business newspaper wrote : "Vladimir Putin won a bet that could not be lost - to be elected for a new term during a full-scale crisis in relations with the West."

Rzeczpospolita

Putin's election means "continuing the policy of confrontation with the West,"writes the conservative Polish newspaper. "Russia has exhausted the opportunities for development and will now rely only on strength and expansion," said Rzeczpospolita Bartholomew Sinkiewicz, co-founder of the Center for Eastern Studies and former Interior Minister of Poland.

BBC

"Restrained reaction of Western leaders to Putin's victory": German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to congratulate Putin on re-election, but no other Western leader has done so at the moment (14.10 Moscow time), the BBC reports. Putin has already been congratulated by the leaders of Iran, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba. Representative Merkel Steffen Seibert said that she "very soon" would send him a telegram. "We have disagreements with Russia, we clearly criticize Russia's policy on a number of issues - Ukrainian, Syrian," added Seibert.

Tensions between Russia and the West increased in recent weeks after the poisoning of Skrypal. European Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Federica Magerini, arriving on Monday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers dedicated to this poisoning, called him "absolutely unacceptable," the BBC reports .

Chinese President Xi Jinping in his congratulatory address to Putin said: "Full-scale strategic cooperation and partnership between China and Russia is now at the highest level in history; it demonstrates an example of building a new type of international relations. "

The New York Times

Although some violations were noted during the voting, there was no need for large-scale falsifications, given the real popularity of Putin, NYT notes . The newspaper quotes the story of 26-year-old programmer Ilya Amutov, a supporter of Alexei Navalny. According to him, he was shocked to see how on the pre-election site on Leninsky Prospect, where he was an election observer from the headquarters of Ksenia Sobchak, elderly voters kissed a portrait of Putin on a poster with biographies of all candidates and are baptized. "This is a strong cultural shock," Amutov admitted. The newspaper cites VTsIOM data that the age of more than half of those who came to polling stations exceeded 45 years, while only 18% of those aged 18-25 voted.

Putin's policy is unlikely to change, says NYT: most likely he will continue to restore Russia's status as a world power and limit economic reforms. Considering that this is his last legal term, "many expect that now the Kremlin elite will start a serious struggle to choose a successor," the newspaper writes.

CNN

"Putin has not raised a successor for himself, which generates speculation that he can try to find ways to stay in power after a new term," CNN writes , calling the election "a race with one participant." All Western media note that the main opponent of Putin, Alexei Navalny, was not allowed to participate in the elections.

Many young Russians did not vote, telling reporters that there was no real choice, their voice would not affect anything, and calling the elections a circus.