Supporters chanted “Putin, Putin, Putin” when he appeared on stage and “Russia, Russia, Russia” after he had delivered his acceptance speech.

Thousands of opponents – inspired by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month – turned up at noon on Sunday in an attempt to overwhelm polling stations inside Russia and abroad as a means of protest.

The voters, mostly young and anti-Putin, waited in long lines to cast ballots in Berlin – where Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya voted –, Serbia and Montenegro, with many saying it was a symbolic gesture that would not impact Putin’s bid.

Putin told reporters he regarded Russia’s election as democratic and said the Navalny-inspired protest against him had had no effect on the election’s outcome.

In his first comments on his death, he also said that Navalny’s passing had been a “sad event” and confirmed that he had been ready to do a prisoner swap involving the opposition politician.

When asked by American TV network NBC whether his re-election was democratic, Putin criticised the US political and judicial systems.

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“The whole world is laughing at what is happening [in the United States],” he said. “This is just a disaster, not a democracy.

“Is it democratic to use administrative resources to attack one of the candidates for the presidency of the United States, using the judiciary among other things?” he asked, making an apparent reference to four criminal cases against Republican candidate Donald Trump.

It’s more than two years since Putin triggered the deadliest European conflict since World War II by ordering the invasion of Ukraine.

War has hung over the three-day election: Ukraine has repeatedly attacked oil refineries in Russia, shelled Russian regions and sought to pierce Russian borders with proxy forces – a move Putin said would not be left unpunished.

Putin said Russia might need to create a buffer zone inside Ukraine to prevent such attacks in future.

While his re-election was not in doubt given his control over Russia and the absence of any real challengers, the former KGB spy had wanted to show he had the overwhelming support of Russians.

Nationwide turnout was 74.22 per cent when polls closed at 5am on Monday (AEDT), election officials said, surpassing 2018 levels of 67.5 per cent.

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

Reuters journalists saw an increase in the flow of voters, especially younger people, at noon at polling stations in Moscow, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, with queues of several hundred people and even thousands. Some said they were protesting, though there were few outward signs to distinguish them from ordinary voters.

At least 74 people were arrested on Sunday across Russia, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors crackdowns on dissent.

Over the previous two days, there were scattered incidents of protest as some Russians set fire to voting booths or poured green dye into ballot boxes. Opponents posted some pictures of ballots spoiled with slogans insulting Putin.

But Navalny’s death has left the opposition deprived of its most formidable leader, and other major opposition figures are abroad, in jail or dead.

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The West casts Putin as an autocrat and a killer. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Putin wanted to rule forever and that the vote had been illegitimate.

Putin portrays the war as part of a centuries-old battle with a declining West that he says humiliated Russia after the Cold War by encroaching on Moscow’s sphere of influence.

Reuters