MOSCOW �� Russians are expected hand Vladimir Putin an easy victory in Sunday's presidential election, keeping him in power until 2024.
Putin, 65, already Russia's longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin after more than 18 years in office, is seeking a fourth term during an escalating stand-off with the West and economic malaise.
With little opposition tolerated and widespread apathy about the outcome as living conditions stagnate, the Kremlin's main task is to ensure that voter turnout for Sunday's election is large enough to give Putin's new term a stamp of legitimacy. Officials mounted a major drive ahead of the vote to get citizens to show up at polling places, offering inducements ranging from free food to prize contests.
Putin attended few election events and, as in previous contests, dodged televised debates with his opponents. State broadcasters lavished coverage on presidential visits to Russia's regions, giving scant attention to his rivals.
They include Communist Pavel Grudinin, a farm boss who has defended Stalin's bloody purges; ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who's been trounced in past contests; and Boris Titov, who attracted ridicule for running against Putin while serving as the Kremlin's business ombudsman.
There's also former reality-TV star Ksenia Sobchak, who's run a campaign critical of Putin while laboring under accusations from opposition leader Alexey Navalny that the Kremlin encouraged her candidacy to add sparkle to the lackluster contest. Navalny was barred from running.
With little doubt about the outcome, the Kremlin Friday announced that Putin had already ordered his staff to draft policy decrees covering the next term.
Almost 111 million Russians are eligible to vote at more than 97,000 polling stations nationwide. Polls will close in the westernmost region of Kaliningrad at 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. EDT), with exit poll results expected immediately. Official results will be largely complete by Monday.
Putin will face many challenges in his new six-year term, as a spiraling dispute with the United Kingdom over suspected poisoning of a double agent and his daughter with a chemical weapon adds to tensions with the U.S. and Europe over conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.
Russia, which was hit with Western sanctions for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine that compounded a downturn provoked by plunging oil prices, is struggling to recover after the longest recession in two decades.
In what's likely Putin's to be last term as he's obliged constitutionally to step down as president in 2024, Putin must also groom a trustworthy successor.
While it's not clear whether any of the U.K.'s allies will also target Russia, the nerve-agent poisoning March 4 in the English town of Salisbury has stoked concerns. Britain has expelled 23 Russian diplomats and Moscow Saturday ordered an equal number of British envoys to leave Russia.
Russia also stands accused of intervening in President Donald Trump's favor in the 2016 U.S. elections, and election meddling in several European countries.
