MOSCOW - Russians started voting on Friday in a three-day presidential election that is set to hand veteran leader Vladimir Putin another six-year term as the raging conflict in Ukraine spreads further into Russian territory.
Polling stations in a country spread over 11 time zones opened at 8am on Friday on the Far Eastern Kamchatka peninsula and will close Sunday at 8pm in Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, wedged between EU members Poland and Lithuania.
Putin on Thursday had urged Russians to back him in the face of a "difficult period" for the country, in a pre-election message broadcast on state TV.
"We have already shown that we can be together, defending the freedom, sovereignty and security of Russia ... Today it is critically important not to stray from this path," he said.
The Kremlin leader's confidence is riding high with his troops recently having secured their first territorial gains in Ukraine in nearly a year.
At home, his most strident and charismatic critic of the last decade, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison colony last month. He had been serving 19 years on "extremism" charges widely seen as retribution for his campaigning against the Kremlin.
A state-run pollster predicted earlier this week that Putin would secure more than 80 percent.
Victory will allow him to stay in power until 2030, longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century.