Putin wants to secure his fifth term in office. Putin's Russia is now more than just an authoritarian state, says Russian political scientist Andrei Kolesnikov.
"There are definitely elements of totalitarianism or neo-totalitarianism," he says. The vote is so far removed from democratic standards that some only refer to it as a “sham election” The election begins in the far east and ends at 7 p.m. CET in the west in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.