From today until Sunday, presidential elections are held in the Russian Federation, in which the current president of the country will win again. As in the previous presidential elections, the “candidate” Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin registered as an independent[2], above belonging to any political party. He did not consider it necessary to appeal to voters with a campaign platform, but that does not mean that it does not exist: Boris Nadeytin and Kateryna Duntseva are two Russian citizens who wanted to participate in the election race with an anti-war message, but he was denied participation, on unlike the other three competitors who had nothing noticeable about it. Therefore, the main pre-election platform that Vladimir Putin offers to his compatriots for the next six years is the continuation of the war against Ukraine, other problems facing the federation do not concern them.

*note: “as usual” as always”, in pounds. Russian.

This is the first presidential election [3] three days, the period of time most likely needed to accumulate a majority of points in favor of the current president to officially and propagandistically validate the Kremlin’s foreign policy and actions. The Russian electorate is a sleight of hand for the Russian president as he engages in discussions and negotiations with his counterparts around the world, and this weekend’s election will undoubtedly cement his absolute control over the country and its citizens.

Vladimir Putin has reached the level of “political maturity” where he no longer needs to strengthen his legitimacy in relation to Russian citizens, and it would be a mistake to think that the current election will add to his emotions. It should not be forgotten that at the beginning of his first term as president of the Russian Federation, more than 20 years ago, he promised a room full of former intelligence colleagues that “now we have taken power and we will never give it up again.” Over the past two decades, Vladimir Putin has shown that he is a man of his word.

The first is that the presidential elections will also be held in the Ukrainian territories that were occupied during the invasion of this country by Russian troops, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. Of course, the voting results here will not be a surprise, but will only confirm the status of the occupied territories, where citizens have the freedom to exercise their electoral opportunities under the specific conditions of a Russian-style democracy: “everyone votes for whom they want, and the right person comes out of the ballot box,” as he wrote Tudor Muschatescu. What is surprising, however, is the extraordinary pre-election mobilization in the direction of these occupied territories: according to documents obtained by the Estonian media platform Elfi, Russia spent more than a billion dollars. [4] for streaming movies, series, video games, etc. with messages favorable to the Kremlin or hostile to the Western world in the areas they control in Ukraine.

So one observation that stands out is that the Russian-organized presidential election in occupied Ukraine is part of the very war effort, the very war that has become an uncomfortable topic at home for Russian citizens heading to the polls this weekend. From this point of view, the three days set aside for voting, plus the possibility of electronic voting, plus the compulsion of those working in the state anywhere in the federation to go vote, all converge to bring the final tally to absolute victory. candidate Vladimir Putin, estimated at 70% to 80% [5].

It will undoubtedly be a show of force, but not one to impress the Russian people, but one that serves Russia’s ambitions abroad and in the Russian president’s relationship with his perceived equals in the Kremlin. Greatness is the key word that we need to understand, based on the results of this presidential election, because, according to the power logic of the organizers, Russia is not itself without greatness, at home and abroad.

By the way, the real stake for Vladimir Putin is his legitimacy as a leader, it doesn’t matter if he is an autocrat, even more so. The new world order to which Russia aspires and in which it invests colossal sums of money is one in which authoritarian leaders gain recognition precisely because of their power, which is exercised against democratic norms and rules established by international law.

Global media platforms such as the Financial Times, The Economist and others usually post news or articles related to Russia in the Europe section. In their editorial perception, the conflict situation between Russia and Ukraine is, more or less directly formulated, a European problem. However, it seems that this perception is not shared by European political leaders, among whom there is a tacit expectation that the main support for Ukraine will come from the United States of America. The source of this attitude comes from the very legitimacy attributed to Vladimir Putin as the President of the Russian Federation, a state that unprovokedly attacked another state, Ukraine, right on the edge of the European Union. So, it becomes obvious that Western Europe has not learned the proper lessons from the experience of the former Yugoslav conflict. And it flared up and played out on the fringes of Europe until American military power intervened to put an end to it.

If Russia were a smaller state without abundant reserves of money and hydrocarbons, European leaders would treat Vladimir Putin as an interlocutor lacking political legitimacy and marginalize him as a result. If any state of the European Union found itself in a situation of partial occupation by foreign troops, and presidential elections were organized in the occupied territories, such a situation would be considered a reason for the immediate termination of political dialogue and an unambiguous challenge to the legitimacy of the governing bodies of the aggressor state.

Ukraine received the status of a candidate for joining the European Union in June 2022, and in December 2023 the leaders of the Union decided to open accession negotiations [6]. Thus, there is a political context for those same European leaders to treat Vladimir Putin as an illegitimate interlocutor before he leaves the scene naturally, just as Stalin passed into history. Indeed, Europe cannot overcome its reduced military capacity anytime soon, but it can strengthen its political will by applying its own principles and values ​​more consistently.

External legitimacy is a critical point revealed by the presidential election, of which Vladimir Putin will be the undisputed winner, for the simple reason that this legitimacy is something that is more or less given to him by other heads of state. The current and future Russian president is a dictator and is very happy with this status, and his compatriots are far from challenging both the person and the status. Any sliver of legitimacy that Europe ascribes to Russia in favor of Vladimir Putin will only tip the scales in favor of European politicians greedy for an autocratic model of power and increase the risk of political contamination to the detriment of Europe’s hard-built democracy. in recent decades. If we don’t want new controlled elections, with predetermined winners and societies in which the ordinary citizen is considered nothing more than a maneuvering table and cannon fodder, then let’s learn the lesson of these elections that Russia is now imposing on the territory of Ukraine. -Read the rest of the article on Contributors.ro