Doesn't look anymore rigged than US elections (which frequently are). Unsurprisingly, they were overwhelmingly (over 90%) pro-Putin. Why not? They're getting a bridge to the mainland and no longer part of basket case Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, one of the primary boosters of Putin are USG's counterproductive sanctions and information war.

What is surprising is that the country has virtually no political prisoners (Ksenia Sobchak could list only 16 dubious cases when she and other candidates met with Putin in the Kremlin on March 19). During the campaign the candidates were able to express the most outrageous attacks on the government and its policies using false accusations, on live national television without any hint of retribution.

Very different from USA, we've got a whole lot of them.