OSW Commentary - Putin’s spectacle: the Soviet-style presidential ‘election’ - The electoral ‘special operation’

It was also an occasion to test the efficiency of the administrative apparatus, which was expected to produce the results desired by the Kremlin against the backdrop of public disorientation about the real goals of the invasion, the growing support for peace talks (albeit on Russian terms), and the country’s expanding economic problems. [...] The ‘election’s results prove that the Kremlin is the only decision-making centre to have real influence on the country’s policies and is also meant to strengthen Russia’s image in the countries of the Global South and increase pressure on the West to accept Russia’s revanchist demands regarding European and global security architecture. [...] At the same time, the main factors that determine the declared high public support for Putin include a sense of the lack of any alternatives, awareness of the threat posed by the war (which is presented as a defensive war for the survival of the state and the Russian people), general fatalism and a lack of other collective identity than the imperial identity dictated by the state. [...] The Kremlin’s propaganda pre- Ensuring high turnout by all means was part of sented the official results of the a larger disinformation operation aimed at adding ‘election’, including the allegedly legitimacy to the narrative that the situation in the record-high turnout, as an ex- unlawfully annexed territories is allegedly ‘normal’, pression of the citizens’ immense and that the local population. [...] The consequences of the ‘election’ In the context of the Kremlin’s totalitarian domestic policy, the government’s stance during the ‘elec- tion’ reflects a growing assertiveness, the casting aside of any previous pretences, and a prioritisation of coercion as the primary tool for governing society.