Voters head to the polls in Russia for a three-day presidential election from March 15 to 17 that will almost certainly extend President Vladimir Putin’s rule for another six years after a crackdown on dissent .

The election comes against the backdrop of a brutal crackdown that has crippled independent media and prominent human rights groups and given Putin complete control of the political system.

Meanwhile, Moscow’s war in Ukraine enters its third year. Russia has the advantage on the battlefield, and it has made small but slow progress. Meanwhile, Ukraine has left Moscow vulnerable behind its front lines: long-range drone strikes penetrate deep into Russian territory, while high-tech drones put its Black Sea fleet on the defensive.

Voters will cast their ballots from Friday to Sunday (March 17) at polling stations in 11 time zones across the vast country, as well as in areas illegally annexed by Ukraine.

The first polling stations opened at 8 a.m. in Chukotka and Kamchatka, Russia’s easternmost regions

There is little suspense in the election, as Putin, 71, runs for a fifth term virtually unchallenged. His political opponents are either in jail or in exile, with the most ferocious of them, Alexei Navalny, recently dying in a remote Arctic penal colony.

The other three candidates on the ballot are low-profile politicians from token opposition parties who toe the Kremlin’s line.

Observers have little expectation that the election will be free and fair. In addition to voters having no choice, the possibilities for independent oversight are also very limited.

Only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations, reducing the possibility of independent oversight bodies. Voting takes place over three days at the country’s nearly 100,000 polling stations, making any real monitoring difficult anyway.

“The entire Russian election is a sham. The Kremlin controls who is on the ballot. The Kremlin controls how they campaign. Not to mention being able to control every aspect of the voting and counting process,” said the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington said Sam Green, Director of Democracy Resilience.

Ukraine and Western countries also condemned Russia for holding the vote in areas of Ukraine captured and occupied by Moscow’s troops.

In many ways, Ukraine is at the heart of the election, political analysts and opposition figures say. They say Putin hopes to use his almost certain election victory to demonstrate widespread support for the war and his handling of it. The opposition, meanwhile, hopes to use the vote to express its dissatisfaction with the war and the Kremlin.

Political analyst Abbas said the Kremlin was depriving voters of any choice on “the main issues on Russia’s political agenda” by banning two politicians who had tried to push an anti-war agenda and attracted real, though not overwhelming, support. . Galyamov served as Putin’s speechwriter.

Russia’s fragmented opposition has urged those dissatisfied with Putin or the war to show up at polling stations at noon on the last day of voting on Sunday (March 17) in protest. This strategy was endorsed by Navalny shortly before his death.

“We need to use Election Day to show that we exist, that there are many of us, that we are real, live, real people, and that we are against Putin. … What you do next is up to you. You can vote for except Putin Any candidate other than that. You could ruin your vote,” said his widow, Yulia Navalnaya.

How effective this strategy is remains unclear.

Golos, Russia’s leading independent election observation group, said in a report this week that authorities are “doing everything they can to keep people from paying attention to the fact that the election took place.”

The watchdog described the pre-poll campaign as the “barely noticeable” and “most lackluster” activity since Golos was founded in 2000 and began monitoring Russian elections.

Putin’s campaign was cloaked in presidential events, while other candidates were “clearly passive,” the report said.

Golos said the election was covered less by state media than in 2018, when Putin was last elected. The group said that rather than pushing to ensure ideal turnout, authorities appeared to be betting on pressuring voters they could control – such as Russians working at state-run companies or institutions – to turn out.

The watchdog itself has also been subject to a crackdown: its co-chairman Grigory Melkonyants is in jail awaiting trial on charges widely seen as an attempt to pressure the group ahead of elections.

“The current election will not reflect the true sentiments of the people,” Golos said in the report. “The distance between citizens and decisions about the fate of their country is greater than ever before.”