Putin will lead until 'end of his natural life' - activist
On Friday, an anti-corruption campaigner likened Putin to the late Colombian drug boss Pablo Escobar.
Bill Browder, whose Hermitage Capital Management firm was one of the largest investors in Russia in the late 1990s to early 2000s, said the election was"a farce from top to bottom". "If the people of Russia, without leadership, just on their own, decide enough is enough, then he could end up with a Ceausescu situation," he said, referring to Romania's former communist leader, Nicolae Ceausescu.
On Thursday he urged Russians to back him in the face of a"difficult period" for the country, in a pre-election message broadcast on state TV."Putin has killed, imprisoned or exiled all of his opponents," said Browder, who led an international campaign to sanction Russian government officials after the death of his Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, in prison in 2009.
Putin, he said, was more of a mafia boss who used the powers of a sovereign state"to achieve all of his criminal aims".