This year, it is time for a new presidential election in Russia. Often it is spoken in terms of pseudo-elections and rigged elections. But for Vladimir Putin, it is important to give the appearance of a solid election campaign – despite the fact that the result is probably already written.
– Getting this legitimacy really makes him feel like a real president, says Maria Georgieva, long-time correspondent in Russia for TV4’s Efter fem.
She describes the Russian presidential election as “a great spectacle”.
– It is important that elections are held, that one campaigns and shows that it is United Russia that will continue to rule.
And it is thanks to his own rewriting of the law that Vladimir Putin can run for a new presidential election. He will therefore remain in power for a long time to come, she says.
Presidential candidate Putin
In the shadow of the election, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is scheduled to be buried on Friday. The ceremony is planned to take place in a small church in Moscow, near where Navalny grew up. His mother says she was given an ultimatum to bury her son in secret or he will be buried on the prison grounds, according to investigators.
– Many will appear and you have already started to see fences appear near the church. So the security burden will probably be large, says Maria Georgieva.
During his annual address to the nation, Vladimir Putin summed up his view of the war in Ukraine – but above all it was presidential candidate Putin who painted a bright future for Russia.
– Putin says that in the next six years he will fix the problems that he himself created, says Maria Georgieva.
High technology and education for the residents are some of the issues on which he is going to the polls. The current president also says that he will ensure that childbearing increases.
– It is very important to him that you have large families in the Russia of the future.
He also claims to have a majority behind him that supports his war in Ukraine. However, according to Maria Georgieva, it should be taken with a certain pinch of salt. She says that Russian soldiers have expressed dissatisfaction with not being allowed to come home from the front.
120 fallen soldiers – every day
According to new estimates, 75,000 Russian soldiers have died since the full-scale war broke out on February 24, 2022, the independent Russian sites Meduza and Mediazona report. In the past six months, 120 soldiers have died every day.
– This is as close to the truth as you can get, says Lieutenant Colonel Joakim Paasikivi.
However, so far it does not seem to have any consequences for the war. According to Joakim Paasikivi, this is because most are men who chose to join the army themselves.
– It’s not poor conscripts whose mothers get sad. Without this, the machine is Russia that recruits. Those soldiers have made their own choice, except for 300,000 in September 2022 who are still fighting and alive, he says.
Since Russia took over Avdijivka, Ukraine has backed down. Now there is growing concern about further Russian advances. So far, they are estimated to have covered between five and seven kilometers.
– I probably don’t think there will be any major operational breakthrough, but it may be that the Russians take more than what the Ukrainians had planned for when they retreated, says Joakim Paasikivi.