Russia is facing parliamentary elections in a month. The winner is clear, as the local regime has excluded the opposition from the competition.
Not only abroad, but also in Russia itself, as the parliamentary elections approach, which will take place in the country from September 18 to 20, there is talk of a significantly lower electoral result for Vladimir Putin's party United Russia than in the previous contest. One of the latest steps by the local authorities, confirming the nerves, is the fact that a Russian court excluded the opposition party Yabloko from the elections. Nevertheless, the winner has long been decided.
In just a month, Russia faces new parliamentary elections. People will elect 450 deputies to the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. As in the previous elections, the clear favorite is the United Russia party.
Opposition to the war is growing
All of this is happening in a situation where Russians are clearly tired of the war in Ukraine, which has been under occupation for the past 4 years, and the popularity of the country's leader, Vladimir Putin, is declining. Due to fears of assassination or drone attacks, he appears in public only very rarely. In recent months, the Russian Federal Protective Service, responsible for the security of the highest officials, has significantly strengthened his protection.
The war is increasingly felt in the everyday life of Russians as a defending Ukraine repeatedly targets, among other things, Russian refineries, disrupting fuel supplies. The extent of the Russian public's resistance to the war is difficult to assess, but according to the non-governmental Levada Center, the share of those claiming to support the war fell to 66 percent in July, the lowest since the start of the Russian invasion.
When the current State Duma concluded its session at the end of last month, its chairman Vyacheslav Volodin repeatedly urged the present deputies to start chanting "Russia! Putin! Victory!". However, most deputies did not join him at all and limited themselves to polite applause.
Court Excludes Opposition from Elections
Additionally, the Russian Supreme Court excluded the liberal opposition party Yabloko, which opposes the war, from the September parliamentary elections. The request for exclusion from the elections came a day after the widow of opposition leader Alexei Navalny urged voters on social media to vote for Yabloko in September, as it is the only Russian party running in the parliamentary elections that opposes the war.
The exclusion of Yabloko from the elections was demanded by the Rodina (Motherland) party, labeled as far-right and populist. Among other things, it claimed that the group received undeclared campaign support from Western sources. Rodina described Yabloko's anti-war stance as calls for extremism and a threat to Russia's territorial integrity.
Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov stated during the hearing that there is no evidence to support the allegations, labeling the case as an unconstitutional attack on freedom of thought by political opponents. The court's verdict, among other things, highlights the intolerance of Russian authorities towards anti-war opinions and further narrows the already restricted space for dissent in Russian politics. It is clear that Russians have no legal means to protest against the conflict or the conditions in the country.
What will happen after the elections?
According to current estimates, United Russia has the support of roughly 45 percent of the country's citizens. The final numbers, however, could be much higher. Local data experts have, for example, estimated that millions of fake votes were added for the pro-Kremlin United Russia party during the last elections for the State Duma. Russian authorities usually label reports of irregularities during parliamentary elections as an attempt by the West to discredit them. It can be expected that United Russia will win the elections decisively once again, with support from communists, nationalists, and other parties.
And what about the war? Russian President Vladimir Putin has no interest in ending it because, due to his declining popularity, he cannot afford to make peace. Such a loss of power in the event of a peace agreement could even mean personal liquidation for Putin by his own citizens.
The most likely outcome appears to be the transformation of the conflict into a permanently frozen front with low-intensity fighting, similar to the Korean Peninsula. In the span of twenty years, Ukraine could become akin to a prosperous and democratic South Korea, while Russia would remain an internationally isolated dictatorship.
The Russian mobilization, which is being discussed, is unlikely to cause a turn in the war. The reason is the slow progress in conquering Donbas, which Putin has set as the minimum goal at this stage of the war. However, this could lead to many more Russians leaving the country. In fear of being drafted, approximately 300,000 of them went to Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, or the United Arab Emirates in 2022. A new exodus from the country may occur despite the fact that many countries no longer want to accept Russians and the government is introducing a system of so-called exit visas, where Russian citizens must apply for permission to leave the country before departing.
Source: author's text, ČTK, Reuters, PolitPro
