With war as a backdrop, Putin looks ahead to a new term as president

When asked last week what kind of leader should replace President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, his longtime spokesman gave a quick and simple answer: “the same.”

“Or different, but the same,” said the spokesman, Dmitry S. Peskov, told a Russian television network, adding that he was confident that if Putin were to run, he would win the election “without a doubt” and remain “our president.”

Few doubt that Putin will seek another presidential term in the March elections. He is widely expected to formally announce his candidacy next month.

There is also little doubt about the outcome; In Russia’s authoritarian political system, Mr Putin would always have won by a wide margin. He has led Russia as president or prime minister since 1999.

But the upcoming presidential elections have more significance; it is the first since Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – Mr Putin’s most consequential decision since he first crossed the Kremlin walls as his country’s leader two decades ago.

And the elections are directly in line with Putin’s war strategy for 2024; in particular, he will order a new mobilization of soldiers, which could be unpopular at home, after securing his fifth term as Russian leader.

“War and mobilization are becoming increasingly unpopular,” says Andrei Pertsev, who analyzes Russian politics for Meduza, a Russian news website based in Riga, Latvia. “They make people anxious.”

Critics question the purpose of a presidential election in a country at war where most opposition leaders have either been driven into exile or imprisoned, the Kremlin-controlled election apparatus filters who can and cannot run for office, and most of the popular news media sing only its praises for the sitting president. .

Grigorii Golosov, professor of political science at the European University of St. Petersburg, Russia, said Putin wanted to ensure that no one could cast doubt on his legitimacy at the helm of the Russian state, and especially on various groups within the Russian state. the country’s ruling class.

“Both the population in general and the Russian ruling class are aware that there has been no real political rivalry in Russia for years,” he said. “But there is no big difference between real legitimacy and its imitation.”

Mr. Golosov said that even a semblance of electoral legitimacy would help Mr. Putin weather a domestic crisis should one arise, citing the failed mutiny by warlord Yevgeny V. Prigozhin in June as a possible example.

“Similar situations could arise in the future,” Mr Golosov added.

This will be the first election since Russia revised its constitution, effectively allowing Putin to run for office for the fifth time by allowing him to claim his term clock had been reset.

A number of other candidates are expected to run, including representatives of two political parties – the communist and the nationalist-oriented Liberal Democratic parties – that have served as useful sparring partners during Putin’s previous campaigns. As in the two previous elections, the Kremlin could also enter a liberal candidate into the race – although experts said this was still an open question as such a candidate would most likely campaign against the war in Ukraine.

Boris Nadezhdin, one of the few Russian politicians who have announced their intention to run for office, called the war – or the special military operation as he called it – Putin’s “fatal mistake” and declared that ending it would be his . Priority No. 1.

“Putin is dragging Russia into the past,” Mr. Nadezhdin said said in an interview with Zhivoy Gvozd, a Russian news channel on YouTube, this month. “The biggest problem is that Putin is destroying the most important institutions of a modern state.”

To be formally registered as a candidate, Mr Nadezhdin would have to collect 100,000 signatures from across the country. The Central Electoral Commission would have to vet them, a process that analysts say allows the Kremlin to filter out unwanted candidates.

“I think the chances of him being registered are almost negligible,” said Mr. Golosov, the political analyst.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Igor Girkin announced his intention to govern and unite all pro-war forces under his banner. Mr. Girkin, also known by his nom de guerre Strelkov, stoked Russian nationalism as a warlord and military blogger in Ukraine, but also occasionally criticized the Kremlin.

Mr Girkin is in jail on charges of extremism for criticizing Putin’s handling of the war, saying the Russian leader was “too friendly” to his opponents.

It is unlikely that both Mr Nadezhdin and Mr Girkin will enter the race.

Nevertheless, the elections could potentially spell trouble for the Kremlin, experts say. Although the outcome is a foregone conclusion, Russia’s elections have occasionally represented a major turning point when the political system has been more fragile than usual. In late 2011, for example, tens of thousands of Russians filled the central squares of Moscow and other major Russian cities to protest parliamentary elections they saw as rigged.

This year, the war in Ukraine adds a new element of uncertainty, analysts said. Although Russia has managed to repel the Ukrainian counter-offensive and is launching attacks of its own, the country is sacrificing tens of thousands of soldiers while failing to achieve a meaningful breakthrough or force Kiev to negotiate.

And as long as the war continues, the Russians will stay stretched that a new round of mobilization of men might be needed to combat it. The Kremlin commissioned a draft in the fall of 2021 but has not announced a new draft, citing concerns about domestic reactions. Waiting until after the election would at least remove some political risk.

This is evident from a study by Russian Field, an impartial research agency from Moscow found it that for the first time since the war began, more Russians said they supported negotiations than a continuation of the armed struggle. Nearly two-thirds of people reached by phone said they would support a peace deal in Ukraine if it were signed tomorrow.

The survey was conducted among 1,611 respondents, of which 6,403 refused to participate, highlighting the difficulty of opinion polls in Russia.

Independent pollster Levada reported similar shifts in his poll released in late October, with 55 percent of respondents saying they would prefer peace talks to a continuation of war.

The Kremlin is aware of this change in mood, Meduza’s Mr. Pertsev said. While Mr. Putin remains deeply interested in the military situation, the Kremlin has visibly shifted its agenda from the war to more mundane issues such as developing the country’s infrastructure, Mr. Pertsev said.

For example, on Monday he chaired a ceremony for the delivery of 570 buses to twelve Russian regions.

“The war only makes things worse for the presidential campaign,” Pertsev said in an interview. “It reminds people of difficulties.”

Before the presidential campaign, the Russian state organized a major Rossiya exhibition in Moscow. There, folks walk through a 150-meter-long video tunnel that shows the country’s various achievements under Putin’s rule, such as the construction of apartment buildings and highways. There is no mention of the war.

Mr Pertsev claims the exhibition is intended to create a “theatrical backdrop” for Mr Putin’s campaign. The Kremlin has also organized a competition where families can win certificates for new apartments or travel around Russia. The time frame of the competition coincides with the election period.

“The Russian power vertical is using elections to demonstrate once again that everything is going well and that the West has not broken Russia,” Mr Pertsev said. Another important factor for holding the election, he said, is that Putin “likes it when his work and people’s love for him are publicly displayed.”

“The older he gets, the more he likes it,” he says.