Gerard Depardieu among expatriates voting in Russian presidential election

Sunday's presidential election is taking place not just across the eleven time zones of the Russian Federation but all around the world.

Nearly 1.9 million Russian citizens are registered and able to cast their ballots at nearby embassies.

Among them was the French actor Gerard Depardieu, who voted in Paris.

In all, there were 400 polling stations open in 145 countries around the world, the Russian news agency Tass said.

But Central Election Commission officials were quoted earlier this year as saying they did not expect a significant change in turnout from the last election.

Around 25 per cent of Russian expatriates voted from abroad in the last presidential election in 2012.

Depardieu took Russian citizenship in 2013 and moved his permanent residency to Belgium in response to a 75 per cent tax rate on annual incomes in France over EUR1 million introduced by then-president Francois Hollande.