It might seem that March’s presidential election is an insignificant formality in Russia, since the outcome is no secret and Vladimir Putin will face no real opponents: only toothless sparring partners. Still, it’s an administrative procedure with its own political logic, and therefore its own intrigue.
Just like Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, the presidential election is influencing domestic political trends and changing Russia. The Kremlin can bend over backwards to build a digital gulag and tighten the screws of political control, but the very existence of the presidential campaign presupposes a discussion within the regime about the present and future.
Take the battle that unfolded over the scenarios for Putin’s nomination for reelection. The Kremlin’s domestic policy bloc was adamant that the vision for the country’s future should be built upon a civilian agenda, with buzzwords such as “achievements,” “progress,” and “development.” The war, in contrast, is something temporary on the periphery of public life and people’s consciousness. The embodiment of this camp’s idea is the “Russia” exhibition at Moscow’s VDNKh complex showcasing the country’s supposed achievements. Accordingly, the domestic policy bloc curators had primed the president to use it as the setting for his announcement that he would run again.
In the end, however, Putin confirmed that he would run again in a very different setting, and in a mumbled response to a clumsily staged request from a former Donbas military commander. The message—that the country is fighting for its survival, and every Russian must play their part—could not have been more different to that planned. The proponents of this message are betting everything on a long-term political mobilization in which the general public becomes complicit in military decisions.
Such a system encourages sacrificial patriotism right up to and including people being prepared to offer up the most precious gift of all—their children—for the sake of victory. Efforts to secure the return of those who were mobilized back in 2022, meanwhile, are portrayed as a selfish choice: as putting personal interests before those of the nation.
This was the logic behind the awkward nomination for reelection: all three people filmed urging Putin to run again had lost children in the war. The message was that it is the war and its requirements that will determine the president’s future decisions. It’s no coincidence that some of Putin’s first engagements in 2024 were to visit wounded soldiers at a hospital, and to meet with the families of military personnel.
Staking everything on the war as the dominating factor of everyday life is a political choice that will exacerbate conservative trends, accelerate the pace of repression, and make Russian politics even more intolerant and pitiless.
This is already evident from the outraged reactions to an “almost naked” party held in Moscow in December, attended by stars who were later forced to apologize and, in one case, sentenced to jail time under Russia’s infamous “gay propaganda” laws. The system has gone from simply condemning such behavior to taking legal action, and it will only get more repressive. The regime is turning to increasingly radical forms of self-defense from anything hostile, even if that “threat” comes from a group as politically toothless as Russia’s show business crowd.
The war is beginning to dictate its own rules to Putin. The president and his inner circle are being forced to submit to the new wartime reality that they themselves created. By choosing war and allowing it to pervade everything else, Putin is becoming caught in a trap, turning into a function and instrument of that war. The upcoming elections are acting as a catalyst for all of those processes.
Predictable though it is, the election is also important because against its backdrop, various societal challenges will inevitably appear or worsen. Certainly, Russian society will remain under strict control, but Putin’s behavior ahead of the election reveals his efforts to avoid any kind of social frustration: almost as if he were running for reelection in a democratic country, and not in wartime Russia.
A striking example is the protests by the wives and mothers of those drafted into the army in Russia’s partial mobilization back in the fall of 2022, who would now like to see their husbands and sons come home and for someone else to take their turn at the front. The presidential administration has instructed the regions to appease the distraught relatives but without resorting to arrests, which would only cause further outrage.
For Putin, it’s not an easy choice: refusing to rotate the mobilized could see an explosion of anger—even among those who support the war. But the first wave of mobilization spread panic among Russians and prompted a mass exodus of draft-age men, so the Kremlin is keen to avoid another wave—which is what rotation would require. Saying nothing on the matter makes Putin look weak and indecisive, but in the end, the Kremlin decided this was the safer option, and the Defense Ministry ultimately took the flack by saying the rotation of troops was inadvisable.
On another potentially explosive topic, however—the campaign to restrict abortions in Russia—Putin himself weighed in. Since November, a campaign by religious activists and conservative parliamentarians has been gaining pace, with individual regions making abortion an administrative offense. It had gained such momentum that State Duma deputies had already begun drawing up bills for restrictions at the federal level.
Yet polls show that the majority of Russian society is against a ban. Consequently, during his press conference, Putin said women should be able to decide for themselves. As if by magic, legislators instantly curtailed their anti-abortion initiatives.
These reactions to the thorny issues of mobilization and abortion prove that the Kremlin and Putin personally are monitoring public opinion, and that they take the threat of mass protests seriously. No matter how closely the Kremlin controls television and how ruthlessly it crushes the opposition, the objective agenda imposes its own logic of action and betrays Putin’s fear of the unpredictable masses.
Indeed, no one can predict where the explosion may come. No sooner had the new year begun than freezing temperatures in the Moscow region led to utility failures that left over 110,000 people without heating. The regional governor, Andrei Vorobyov, came under attack, and Putin, who has distanced himself as far as possible from the day-to-day agenda in recent years, had to take personal charge of the situation. The reason for this rare intervention is that any elections, including the upcoming vote in March, shine a spotlight on shifts in the relationship between the government and society. And now, in wartime, the stakes are so high that the Kremlin has to meticulously analyze any manifestation of mass discontent.
Ahead of the festive season, Putin took part in some truly bizarre scenes in which his role was to make children’s dreams come true. Right now, the president is both Father Christmas, embodying paternal care for his people, and the leader of a nation at war, sending off other people’s children to the front. This political oxymoron is the result of a lack of unanimous vision for Russia’s future. Various factions within the regime are in conflict on this point, and that ultimately weakens the president.
