Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has won won a fresh term of office, following a landslide victory of 73.9% of the vote, defeating the closest competitor, according to exit poll.
With the victory, Putin will lead Russia for another six years.
According to BBC, the main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, was barred from the race.
The scale of victory - which had been widely predicted - was a marked increase in his share of the vote from 2012, when he won 64% of the votes.
A state exit poll put the turnout at 63.7%, down on 2012.
Mr Putin's campaign had hoped for a large turnout, to give him the strongest possible mandate.
Video recordings from polling stations showed irregularities in a number of towns and cities across Russia. Several videos showed election officials stuffing boxes with ballot papers.
Early results showed that with just 21.3% of boxes counted, Mr Putin had almost 72% of the votes.
Exit polls, published as soon as voting ended, showed that Mr Putin's closest opponent, Pavel Grudinin, was only projected to win 11.2%.
Mr Navalny was excluded from the election because of an embezzlement conviction that he said was manufactured by the Kremlin.