Only Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ruled for longer.
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Apart from India, a host of countries congratulated Putin on his record fourth term victory.
But European observers said that while the poll was conducted efficiently there was a lack of genuine choice.
Valentina Matvienko, Russian parliament’s upper house speaker, said it was “unprecedented” in terms of both the voter turnout and support for Putin during all his tenures.
Putin’s most vehement foe, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, was barred from running Sunday because he was convicted of fraud in a case widely regarded as politically motivated.
“The two leaders confirmed their close cooperation in realising North Korea’s denuclearisation” before an expected summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, it said.
However, Ella Pamfilova, head of the Central Electoral Commission, said there were only half as many reported violations compared to 2012, and that none had been serious.
“What people can see is that this is a classic Russian strategy of trying to hide the needle of truth in a haystack of lies and obfuscation”, he said.
With results still coming in, Putin is looking to surpass expectations by clinching more than 73 percent of the vote.
Ukraine is split between a volatile government in Kiev and a Russia-backed separatist region stuck in a frozen but still deadly conflict that serves Putin’s interests.
Moscow faces increasing global isolation over its interventions in Ukraine and in Syria, and a fresh round of U.S. sanctions over alleged Russian election meddling in 2016.
At least one polling station video camera was obscured.
The son of a factory worker and Soviet Navy officer, Putin upset the odds both at home and overseas with a victory described as further validation of the democratic process in Russian Federation. There were half as many reported violations as in the last election in 2012, while Mr Putin’s “unprecedented” level of support showed that society had united in the face of pressure from overseas, she said.
Pictures showed blatant ballot rigging in an election marred by hundreds of irregularities.
“Most candidates publicly expressed their certainty that the incumbent president would prevail in the election”, it said. “This really is the ideal moment”, remarked Stanislav Kucher, a journalist for Kommersant FM radio.
Pavel Grudinin is the second with 11.82%, Vladimir Zhirinovsky is the third with 5.68%.
Upon getting just 1.5 percent of votes in Sunday’s presidential election, Ksenia Sobchak told RT that she did not intend to win, but rather “educate” Russian citizens, and went on to present a plan to unite all liberal opposition.
Putin-friendly leaders have made gains in recent Italian and German elections.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters that Britain’s allegations were “difficult to explain. groundless and slanderous”.
“In this respect, we assume that Russian Federation will remain a hard partner”.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday dismissed the British accusations as “nonsense”, but said that Moscow is ready to cooperate with London in the investigation.
