Russian Presidential Elections Matter Much To The Russian People

In 2024, why do the Russian Presidential Elections matter much to the Russian people?

Exactly two days ago, the Russian Presidential Elections kicked off in all over Russia and the newly-joined Russian regions in Eastern Ukraine. Yes, the war in Ukraine is not over yet but it does not mean Moscow has to postpone the scheduled elections of every six years. These elections mean a lot to Russia as a state, and to the Russian political and economic stability.

It’s been widely noticed, the number of Russians visiting the voting centers -in all regions- in the past two days is larger than their numbers in 2018, thus, Russians seems to be more interested in choosing and determining the identity of their leader in times of conflict rather than in times of peace.

Despite all cyber-attacks the Russian Elections’ website received the past few days, it never stopped to operate and continued to receive online votes of millions of Russians, in Russia and abroad. Furthermore, it is the first time people of the newly-joined regions participate in the ongoing elections, despite all current difficulties of war and instability over-there. Russians in these four regions assure once more that their longstanding solid decision to join Russia is not a matter of the present only, but of the past and the future as well.

The past few months, mainly the US, Germany, France and UK have been doubting the credibility of the Russian elections taking place nowadays, but many might say; how could the judgement of these exact countries be credible and objective while they are still -to this very day- supplying Ukraine with all types of weapons, finance and intelligence support in the fight against Russia?!

In addition, many NATO and European countries have targeted the Russian economy and government with thousands of sanctions over the past 10 years, therefore, how could their criticism to the Elections ever be assessed as objective or neutral?! Logically, it is not.

It is true the current status of the Russian economy is not perfect – due to the ongoing war and the impact of Western sanctions. It’s also true, Russia has not fully won the ongoing war in Ukraine yet – due to the unprecedented and unlimited Western support to Ukraine, but despite all of that, President Vladimir Putin’s popularity has steadily increased over the past two years. This could be linked to many reasons.

First, Putin proves to the Russian people once again, he’s capable of leading the vast country in the hardest times and he’s also capable of maintaining steady growth of the Russian economy among thousands of unprecedented sanctions.

Second, the Russian military under Putin’s command has been gaining more lands and achieving further objectives day by day, which itself boosts the national moral and confidence of Russians in their current leader. Third, polls project that the majority of Russians today see Vladimir Putin as the present unifier of all Russia, the guarantor of social and economic stability, and thus, the most agreed-on presidential candidate in 2024.

In short, no matter what the West’s or the East’s assessments are, the elections are taking place as usual in Russia and the Russians are the only people to decide the identity of their upcoming leader. Apparently the majority of them will vote for Vladimir Putin, in consideration to the many discussed factors above.