MOSCOW - Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) on Wednesday evening released the final results of the March 4 presidential election, saying that incumbent Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won the election with 63.6 percent of the votes.

According to the CEC final results, Putin received 45,602,075 votes in the election.

The Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov took the second with 17.18 percent of the votes, while independent billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov secured 7.98 percent.

About 6.22 percent of the votes went to Liberal Democratic leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and 3.85 percent for A Just Russia leader Sergei Mironov.

The CEC also confirmed the voter turnout of the Sunday election was 65.34 percent.

CEC Deputy Chairman Stanislav Vavilov told reporters that Russia had fulfilled all its obligations to invite international observers to the presidential election.

"They were provided with all the necessary organizational, technical and legal conditions to carry out their duties," Vavilov said.

According to the CEC, some 685 international observers from 56 countries had been granted accreditations to monitor the election.

The CEC announced the preliminary results of the election after 99.3 percent of the ballots had been counted early Monday.

Before the preliminary results were announced, Putin, not known for putting his emotions on public display, declared his victory Sunday night with tears on his cheeks, after exit poll results showed he would win 58.3 percent of the votes.

Zhirinovsky and Mironov have called Putin early Monday to congratulate him on the victory, while Zyuganov and Prokhorov have claimed the election was "unfair."

After his election, Putin met with Zhirinovsky, Mironov and Prokhorov on Monday and invited them for cooperation "to settle the problems in the country." However, Zyuganov didn't attend the meeting.

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