Vladimir Putin is the only viable contender and the sole victor in a war-torn Russia.
The 71-year-old former KGB lieutenant colonel is well-liked among Russians who are voting in the March 15–17 election despite significant support for the conflict in Ukraine.
Lyudmila Petrova, 46, stated, “I support Putin and, of course, I will vote for him,” as she browsed one of Russia’s biggest wholesale marketplaces in southern Moscow for fake New Balance sneakers made in China.
“Putin lifted Russia off its mat. And the West and Ukraine will be defeated by Russia. Russia is impossible to defeat, ever,” Petrova declared. Have all of you in the West gone insane? What is your relationship to Ukraine?
According to US President Joe Biden last month, Putin is seen by the West as an autocrat, a war criminal, a murderer, and even a “crazy SOB” who has forced Russia into a despotic dictatorship that would ultimately lead to strategic disaster.
However, polls and conversations with senior Russian sources indicate that in Russia, Putin’s popularity among Russians has increased and his hold on power has strengthened as a result of the war.
“There is no question about it: this is a career for life,” a strong Russian with knowledge of the inner workings of the Kremlin stated. He shared his opinions on political matters with Reuters while speaking under oath.
“Putin is on a whole other level and has no rivals. With its sanctions and demonization of Russia, the West committed a grave error by aiding in the unification of a sizable portion of the Russian populace and elite around Putin.
According to a second reliable source in Russia, Putin’s longevity as president has less to do with politics and more to do with his seeming good health. There isn’t a clear successor to him.
Following eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russian proxies and Kyiv’s military, Putin authorized a full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
On both sides, there have been tens of thousands of military deaths and numerous injuries; thousands of civilian deaths have also occurred, and the damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure and economy has reached the hundreds of billions of dollars mark.
The West has given Ukraine hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of aid, weapons, and high-level intelligence because it believes that Putin poses a threat that goes far beyond the boundaries of the former Soviet Union.
Putin is accused by Western leaders of launching a bloody campaign in the vein of imperialism with the goal of regaining Russia’s influence across the world.
Conflict with the West
Putin frames the conflict as an existential struggle against a decaying and corrupt West that, in his view, humiliated Russia by intruding into areas that Moscow claims to be its sphere of influence, notably Ukraine, following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Many Russians who are dubious of the politics and intentions of the West—if not its consumer goods—find that appealing.
High ranking Kremlin officials openly discuss conflict with NATO, with some even donning t-shirts that read “Putin’s Team.”
As of right now, Putin has an 86% approval rating, up from 71pc just prior to the invasion of Ukraine, according to reputable Russian pollster Levada Center.
The 2008 conflict with Georgia and the 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine both saw a sharp increase in Putin’s popularity.
Putin is portrayed by Russian television and an advanced social media operation as a strong patriot, while Biden and other Western politicians are mocked for being weak, naïve, and dishonest.
Alexei Levinson, head of sociocultural research at Levada, told Reuters that “for many Russians, who are partly inspired by propaganda but most importantly by their own inner convictions, Russia is in an age-old struggle with the West— and what is currently happening is an episode in this struggle.”
“Those who indicate such sentiments in our surveys see themselves as involved players in this conflict with the West. They resemble soccer supporters who act as though they are players in the game.
Even while some members of Russia’s elite are dubious about the war’s continuation, they stand to lose a great deal and gain little by defying the Kremlin, as demonstrated by the unsuccessful mutiny of mercenary Wagner group head Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023.
On August 23, two months to the day after the mutiny, Prigozhin’s jet crashed.
Putin is not giving much room for error. Following the full-scale invasion, the government has clamped down on any indication of opposition. Protests are prohibited, and hundreds of people have been arrested for voicing their disapproval.
Russia’s state media, which predominates in the broadcast media, is devoted to Putin. The three competitive candidates have one task: to fail. Their approval scores are all below six percent.
An election officer advised anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin, who had gathered tens of thousands of signatures to register, to stop whining and start focusing on his own shortcomings.
Making sure there is a large turnout is the Kremlin’s top priority. According to six people who spoke to Reuters, some managers at state-owned businesses have instructed staff members to cast ballots and turn in pictures of their ballots. Russians are even reminded to vote by cash ATMs.
The leaders of the dispersed opposition in Russia are either dead, mute, imprisoned, or overseas.
The jail service reported that Alexei Navalny, the most well-known opposition figure in Russia, passed away on February 16 at the Arctic penitentiary known as “Polar Wolf.” Yulia, his widow, has urged Russians to demonstrate their opposition by showing up at polling places on March 17 at midday.
Putin’s Russia, according to Navalny, is a fragile criminal state ruled by spies, criminals, and acolytes who are only interested in making money. He had long predicted that Russia will experience profound political unrest, possibly even a revolution.
One of Navalny’s top aides, Leonid Volkov, responded, “Dinosaurs were very strong before they were extinct,” when asked if Putin was strong or weak.
Not long after conversing with Reuters in Vilnius, Volkov reported that he suffered a hammer attack, which Lithuania attributed to Russia. Regarding the incident, the Kremlin remained silent.
Veteran Russian rights campaigner Oleg Orlov from the court, where he was sentenced last month to two and a half years in prison for “discrediting the armed forces,” likened Putin’s Russia to a work of fiction by Vladimir Sorokin or Franz Kafka.
Orlov stated, “Those who led our nation into the pit it is currently in represent the old, the decrepit, the obsolete.” They only see delusions of “imperial greatness,” distorted representations of the past, and no sense of the future. Additionally, they are forcing Russia to regress and enter the dystopia.
Treasure and blood
The Russian army and security agencies failed to conduct a brief, successful war, and the mobilization of 2022 alarmed several segments of the populace. Thousands of Russians have died in the conflict.
However, Putin has been successful in hiring hundreds of thousands of Russian military, and Russia has shifted significantly in favor of China, the superpower, despite the fact that Western sanctions have not yet been able to destroy Russia’s economy.
Russia’s war-focused economy expanded by 3.6 percent last year, with real salaries rising by 7.8 percent. However, data indicates that the country is facing shortages in labor, investment, and population.
According to three Russian sources, Putin thinks he can maintain Russia in the war for a very long time and that he has greater staying power in Ukraine than the US.
According to a Russian insider who wished to remain anonymous, “war is not necessarily bad for an economy in the short term.” “Putin can continue to fight for as long as he desires.”
