There is real support behind Putin’s Potemkin vote. But no other choices.

The Kremlin staged last weekend’s Russian presidential election to send a unique message at home and abroad: that President Vladimir V. Putin’s support is overwhelming and unwavering, despite or even because of his war against Ukraine.

From the moment the preliminary results first appeared on state television late Sunday, authorities left no room for misinterpretation. Mr. Putin, they said, won more than 87 percent of the vote, while his nearest competitor won just 4 percent. It had all the hallmarks of an authoritarian Potemkin plebiscite.

The Kremlin may have felt more comfortable orchestrating such a large margin of victory because Putin’s popularity has risen in independent polls during the war, reflecting a rally-around-the-flag effect and optimism about the Russian economy. The Levada Center, an independent pollster, reported last month that 86 percent of Russians approved of Mr. Putin, his highest approval rating in more than seven years.

But while the numbers may indicate unrelenting support for Putin and his agenda across Russia, the situation is more complex than the numbers suggest. The leader of an opposition research group in Moscow has argued that support for Putin is actually much more fragile than simple approval ratings suggest.

“The numbers we get from polls out of Russia don’t mean what people think they mean,” said Aleksei Minyailo, a Moscow-based opposition activist and co-founder of a research project called Chronicles, which has been surveying Russians in recent months. “Because Russia is not an electoral democracy, but a wartime dictatorship.”

The end of January questionnaireChronicles asked one group of Russian respondents what they wanted in key policy areas and another group what they expected from Mr Putin – documenting a substantial difference between desires and expectations.

For example, more than half of respondents said they supported restoring relations with Western countries, but only 28 percent expected Putin to restore them. About 58 percent expressed support for a ceasefire with Ukraine, but only 29 percent expected Putin to agree.

“We see that the Russians want different things than what they expect from Putin,” Mr Minyailo said. “If they had an alternative, they would probably make a different choice.”

However, compelling alternative choices have been systematically eliminated in Mr. Putin’s nearly quarter-century in power in Russia.

Opposition figures have been exiled, imprisoned or murdered. Independent news media have been driven out of the country. And a wave of repression unseen since the Soviet era has led to long prison sentences for simple dissent, such as critical posts on social media.

Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition figure who nurtured the hopes of many Russians for an alternative to Putin, died under mysterious circumstances last month in an Arctic prison. After declaring victory late on Sunday, Mr Putin called Mr Navalny’s death an “unfortunate incident”.

The war has only further reduced what little space there previously was for alternatives to Putin’s agenda to gain public ground.

“A sophisticated argument can be made as to why this war is so against Russian interests, and that part of the spectrum is missing,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “It’s happening now in exile, and the government is putting up a lot of barriers for people who want to use this content.”

By portraying those who oppose the war as saboteurs, he said, Putin’s regime has managed to “turn the opposition into something that is really unattractive – more for outsiders, not for the mainstream population.”

In recent years, Russia’s so-called “political technologists” allowed a semblance of competition and open debate in presidential elections to boost turnout and give the race a patina of authenticity. But this year they took no chances.

Yekaterina S. Duntsova, a relatively unknown TV journalist and former city councilor from a city 140 miles west of Moscow, tried to run for president on an anti-war platform but was quickly disqualified. So did Boris B. Nadezhdin, another under-the-radar politician who collected more than 100,000 signatures needed to enter the race but could not get on the ballot.

“They both deemed them dangerous enough to leave them off the ballot,” Mr. Minyailo said. “In my opinion, that tells a lot about the nature of the regime and how steadfast Putin’s position is. If his regime thinks there is danger in having a provincial journalist collect signatures, that says a lot.”

Russian opinion polls regularly show that a relatively small share of the Russian population are die-hard supporters of Mr. Putin, while a similarly sized group are aggressive opponents, many now abroad.

The majority, pollsters have found, are relatively apathetic and passively support Putin, with no other alternative on their radar. They are mainly influenced by the narrative on television, which is controlled by the state.

“Deep wells of social inertia, apathy and atomization are the real source of Putin’s power,” Mr. Gabuev said. Many Russians, he said, do not have a sophisticated framework for thinking about certain issues because there is no public discussion.

And Russians who express wishes that differ from Putin’s actions are not necessarily willing to fight for what they want, Mr. Minyailo noted. Many Russians believe that they have no influence on the course of events in the country.

Still, the increase in support for Putin among Russians in the two years since he ordered the massive invasion of Ukraine has been undeniable in multiple polls.

Denis Volkov, director of the Levada Center, said some figures showed consolidation around Putin.

“We monitor many indicators, not just approval ratings,” Mr. Volkov said. “We ask open questions. We ask about the economic situation. We ask about people’s moods. All these indicators point in one direction.”

Armed with a vast propaganda apparatus, Mr Putin has convinced millions of Russians that he is bravely defending them against an antagonistic The Western world was determined to use Ukraine as a cudgel to destroy their nation and their way of life.

“The state narrative has produced the idea that it is Russia versus everyone else,” says Katerina Tertytchnaya, professor of comparative politics at the University of Oxford. “It’s very important, this story about being under siege. The lack of an alternative is also cited as one of the reasons people support Putin. People cannot imagine an alternative.”

It is not just that Mr Putin appears superior to the alternative candidates the Kremlin puts on state television. He also comes across as a better choice compared to almost all of his historical predecessors.

“Putin’s first two terms and Putin in general – that’s the paradox, they really lead to the happiest life in the country’s history,” Mr. Gabuev said. “Because the combination of wealth and material prosperity and freedoms that were present at the same time has never been higher.”