On March 18th, 2024, Vladimir Putin won his fifth presidential election for Russia. Putin faced little to no opposition in the election, winning by a landslide.
According to Emma Burrows, Dasha Litvinova and Jim Heintz from an AP News article, “President Vladimir Putin extended his reign over Russia in a landslide election whose outcome was never in doubt, declaring his determination Monday to advance deeper into Ukraine and dangling new threats against the West” (Mar 18, 2024). This could propose a problem for the West side of the globe. Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine began 2 years ago and is still occurring. Due to Ukraine not being a part of NATO, the U.S., Britain, Germany and many other members of NATO are not required to aid Ukraine. Ukraine has been saying that they want to be a part of NATO but that has not happened yet. The U.S. has been aiding Ukraine but not directly. The further invasion of Ukraine could lead to the U.S. aiding them more which could tighten tensions between the U.S. and Russia which could spell disaster.
Before the election, Alexei Navalyn, Putin’s biggest domestic opponent, died in an Arctic prison last month. According to Emma Burrows, Dasha Litvinova and Jim Heintz from another AP News article, “Navalny’s associates urged those unhappy with Putin or the war in Ukraine to go to the polls at noon on Sunday — and lines outside a number of polling stations both inside Russia and at its embassies around the world appeared to swell at that time” (Mar 17, 2024).
From the same article on March 17, 2024, “Among those heeding call was Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, who joined a long line in Berlin as some in the crowd applauded and chanted her name”. Continuing on they said, “She spent more than five hours in the line and told reporters after casting her vote that she wrote her late husband’s name on the ballot.” They continued saying, “Asked whether she had a message for Putin, Navalnaya replied: ‘Please stop asking for messages from me or from somebody for Mr. Putin. There could be no negotiations and nothing with Mr. Putin, because he’s a killer, he’s a gangster’ ”.
According to Reuters, “Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to a prisoner swap involving opposition leader Alexei Navalny before his death in prison last month and said it was sad when someone died” (Mar 17, 2024). This was his first time mentioning Navalny by name. They also said that, “Putin said the main condition for the exchange was that Navalny would not return to Russia”.
