First results: Putin received more than 87 percent of the votes in the presidential elections

President Vladimir Putin won a record number of votes in the presidential elections in Russia, according to exit polls and the first results.

Putin, who came to power in 1999, easily won a new six-year term that would have allowed him to overtake Joseph Stalin to become Russia's longest-serving leader in more than 200 years, reports Reuters.

Putin won 87,8 percent of the vote, the highest ever in Russia's post-Soviet history, according to an exit poll by the Foundation for Public Opinion (FOM). The Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VCIOM) announced that Putin won 87 percent. The first official results showed that the polls were correct, according to Reuters.

Communist candidate Nikolay Kharitonov was second with slightly less than four percent, Vladislav Davankov was third, and ultranationalist Leonid Slutsky was fourth, the results show, reports Reuters.

The Beta Agency reported that according to the Russian Election Commission, after counting the ballots from 24 percent of the polling stations, Putin received 87,97 percent of the votes.

Presidential elections were held in Russia over the course of three days, in which the victory of Putin, who has been at the head of the country for practically 24 years, was expected.

"The election is clearly not free or fair given how Putin has jailed political opponents and prevented others from running against him," said a spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

The election comes just over two years since Putin launched Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II by ordering the invasion of Ukraine.

He calls it a "special military operation".

Reuters says the war has transcended the three-day election: Ukraine has repeatedly attacked oil refineries in Russia, shelled Russian regions and tried to breach Russia's borders with proxy forces - a move Putin said would not go unpunished.

Although Putin's re-election was not in doubt given his control of Russia and the absence of real challengers, the former KGB spy wanted to show that he had overwhelming Russian support.

Nationwide turnout was 74,22 percent at 19 p.m. CET when polls closed, election officials said, surpassing 2018 levels of 67,5 percent.

Supporters of Putin's most prominent opponent, Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month, called on Russians to turn out for a "Noon Against Putin" protest to show their opposition to a leader they describe as a corrupt autocrat.

There was no independent count of how many of Russia's 114 million voters took part in the opposition demonstrations, amid extremely tight security involving tens of thousands of police and security officials.

At noon, Reuters journalists observed an increase in the influx of voters, especially younger people, in the ranks of several hundred and even thousands of people at polling stations in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.

Some said they were protesting, although there were few outward signs to distinguish them from ordinary voters.

As noon arrived across Asia and Europe, hundreds of people gathered at polling stations in Russian diplomatic missions.

Navalny's widow, Yulia, appeared at the Russian embassy in Berlin to cheers and chants of "Julia, Yulia."

Navalny's supporters in exile broadcast videos of protests in Russia and abroad on YouTube.

Voting was also held in Montenegro.