Putin calls on Russians to vote in 'difficult' time

Vladimir Putin urges Russians to go out and vote in the face of a "difficult period", hours before polls open in a presidential election set to extend his hardline rule.

Victory in the March 15-17 contest will allow the former KGB agent to stay in the Kremlin until at least 2030, longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century and eclipsing communist leader Joseph Stalin.