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Chairperson of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova: Good afternoon, Mr President.

Mr President, allow me to present you with this certificate.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms Pamfilova, and the same goes to all your colleagues at the Central Election Commission and those working on the ground. I understand that the work was difficult, but it matters a great deal for the country and for the state’s domestic stability, especially today.

Ella Pamfilova: Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much. Go ahead, please.

Ella Pamfilova: Of course, the results of this election are unprecedented. Mr President, I thought about this, all the figures and statistics are here.

Importantly, our people have demonstrated their wisdom. The whole society came together in an unprecedented manner, and people realised that this was an important stage in the battle for Russia, rather than just a presidential election.

This is true for people in general, and also describes what happened within our system. It is rather complex and includes representatives of many parties. However, this highlighted consolidation and solidarity, since we are all now fighting for the country.

Vladimir Putin: This is so.

Ella Pamfilova: Despite the incredible, I would even say, hysterical intrigues of our ill-wishers, the election turned out the way it did. This time, we witnessed simply indecent interference in the electoral process. However, we have become accustomed to standard types of interference long ago and all the time, and I do not even want to talk about this. However, they started using absolutely ugly methods, pulling out all the stops.

In fact, they too played a big part in consolidating our nation by what they were doing. The voter turnout could be high, the results could be impressive. So what should be done in such situations? They decided to put their stakes on terror, and this is the most cynical and disgusting thing they could do. This has never happened before.

Why did they do it? But how else could they reduce voter turnout? Only by intimidating people, by sowing fear and panic. In effect, they virtually organised terrorist attacks with the help of their Ukrainian accomplices in Kiev. We have seen all this with regard to our border territories, these explosions, the killings, and everything else. Members of our Commission faced the same problem, including telephone threats, attempted blackmail, and many other things, including scare tactics. This is probably the greatest difference in the context of their actions.

It may be surprising, but there were some new approaches too. As I see it, there were two aspects, specifically, to reduce voter turnout, and the second aspect anticipated possible voting results… But we created a transparent and open system, like never before. This extremely resilient system allows everyone to see what is actually going on. It is now becoming harder and harder to lie and to generate fake news for countering this process.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much, and the same goes to all your colleagues.

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