On March 19, 2018, Vladimir Putin secured six more years as Russia's president in a stunning election victory where he won 76.66 percent of the votes.

The margin of victory ensured a record win for Putin, who has served as both Russia's President and Prime Minister since 2000.

He now has free reign to lead the country until the next election in 2024.

According to partial results, his nearest challenger, Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin, got around 13 percent of votes, while nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky received about 6 percent

However, prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny was barred in December 2017 from running for President by the Central Election Commission for a conviction in a fraud case.

Invitations for a visit

On March 21, Singapore's President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong both congratulated the Russian leader on his victory.

President Halimah said in a letter dated March 21:

"Our countries enjoy excellent ties, underpinned by broad-based and mutually-beneficial cooperation. I am confident that the relations between our two countries and the friendship between our peoples will continue to grow in the next 50 years and beyond."

She also invited Putin to make a state visit to Singapore at a "mutually convenient time."

In his letter, Lee invited Putin to attend the 13th East Asia Summit in November 2018, which Singapore will host as the chair of ASEAN.

"Russia is a valuable dialogue partner of ASEAN, and I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to attend the summit... Bilateral ties in areas such as trade, investment and training are growing, and we cooperate productively at international fora like the East Asia Summit, Asia-Europe Meeting, United Nations and Arctic Council."

Lee also mentioned the progress made on negotiations on the Free Trade Agreement between Singapore and the Eurasian Economic Union, a political and economic union comprising Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus.

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Other congratulations

Putin was also congratulated on his win by other world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, who said:

"I had a call with President Putin and congratulated him on the victory, his electoral victory. The call had to do also with the fact that we will probably get together in the not too distant future so that we can discuss arms, we can discuss the arms race."

However, there are no specific plans at the moment for a meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin.

In the United States, Special Counsel Robert Mueller is currently conducting an investigation into allegations that Russia had interfered in the US Presidential Election of 2016.

Trump has denied the claims, saying in a May 2017 interview with NBC:

"This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story."

Putin has also denied the claims in a March 2018 interview with NBC.

He said:

"It’s not our goal to interfere. We do not see what goal we would accomplish by interfering. There’s no goal."

Top image adapted from Halimah Yacob's Facebook page and kremlin.ru's Twitter page

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