Russians are voting to choose the next president of the country on Sunday, 4 March, 2012.
The voting has started at the 90,000 polling stations across the country which comes under different time zones.
Russians are going to the polls amid widespread allegations of vote rigging in the past parliamentary elections by Putin followers.
Polling stations are equipped with web cameras in an attempt to contain the allegations of poll rigging, but the opposition is skeptical about the move and doubt how effective the system would be in capturing the violations.
"Cameras cannot capture all the details of the voting process, in particular during counting," the Associated Press quoted the election observation mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as saying in a report on election preparations.
Apart from the OSCE, activist groups have trained thousands of Russians as volunteers to monitor the election process and to identify and report poll rigging and violations.
Check out the pictures of the Russian presidential election as it progresses:
Russian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin, left, and his wife Lyudmila arrive at a polling station in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 4, 2012.PARussian President Dmitry Medvedev (L) watches as First Lady Svetlana casts her vote on an electronic ballot box in a polling station in Moscow March 4, 2012.ReutersLeader of the Fair Russia party and presidential candidate Sergei Mironov poses as he casts his ballot at a polling station in Moscow, March 4, 2012.ReutersRussian President Dmitry Medvedev casts his vote on an electronic ballot box in a polling station in Moscow March 4, 2012.ReutersRussian billionaire and presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov casts his ballot during presidential elections in the settlement of Pamyati 13 Bortsov, outside Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, March 4, 2012ReutersCommunist party leader and presidential candidate Gennady Zyuganov casts his vote on an electronic ballot box in a polling station in Moscow March 4, 2012ReutersYegor Borisov, President of Yakutia, leaves a booth after filling out ballot papers at a polling station in the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk March 4, 2012.ReutersLeader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky speaks to media after voting at a polling station in Moscow, March 4, 2012ReutersA woman casts her vote at a polling station in Moscow March 4, 2012.ReutersLeader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky gestures as he leaves a polling station in Moscow, March 4, 2012ReutersRussian servicemen queue to vote in a polling station on a military base just outside Moscow March 4, 2012.Reuters
