Electoral Commission: Putin has spent over $6.4m on election campaign

Incumbent Russian President, Vladimir Putin, who is currently seeking re-election, spent over $6.4 million (370 million rubles) on his electoral campaign, according to Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) on Thursday.
As of Tuesday, March 13, Putin’s campaign expenditure amounted to 371,048,644 rubles, according to data released by the official website of the CEC.
Most of the expenses were spent on the distribution of campaign materials and the holding of public events.
Putin’s campaign fund initially contained 400 million rubles.
According to the CEC, the total cost of all presidential candidates’ campaigns totaled 1.5 billion rubles as of Tuesday, while the initially planned total amount was 1.6 billion rubles.
Putin, along with Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nominee of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, have spent the most on their campaigns, with Zhirinovsky’s spending standing at 398 million rubles.
Meanwhile, Sergey Baburin from All-People’s Union (9.6 million rubles) and Communists of Russia’s Maxim Suraykin (1.5 million rubles) turned out to be the most moderate candidates in terms of financial resources spent.
The 2018 Russian elections will take place on March 18 with another seven candidates registered to run for the position.