The truth about elections, held to a single standard.

The election took place in a severely restricted environment: anti-war and genuine opposition candidates were barred, independent domestic monitoring (Golos) was suppressed, and Russia refused to invite OSCE/ODIHR observers — breaking its OSCE commitments. The vote was also held in occupied Ukrainian territories. The European Parliament declared the election neither free nor fair.

Analysis of precinct-level data by independent analyst Ivan Shukshin estimated around 22 million anomalous votes for Putin — turnout and vote-share distributions showing the patterns characteristic of mass ballot stuffing. Shukshin, who had already left Russia, was placed on the national wanted list on a drug charge in January 2025, which he rejects as retaliation for his election work.

The precise scale of any falsification cannot be independently verified: no international observers were present, domestic monitors were suppressed, and multi-day and electronic voting removed paper-based checkability. The anomalous-vote estimates rest on statistical inference from official data rather than direct observation.