For Putin, Elections Remain Important as Means of ‘Testing the Waters’ as Far as What the Elites and Population Now Think, Chernozub Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 30 – For Putin, elections remain critically important even though their results are pre-ordained because they serve as a means of “testing the waters” as to what the elites and the population are prepared to put up with, according to Vsevolod Chernozub. 

            The Russian commentator who now lives in Lithuania argues that election campaigns act “as the ultimate political tool, as a way to gauge their standing, approval rating and distance from the public as well as to assess external influences” on political processes (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/06/30/iznos-elektorata).

            These “external influences” are not radicals now in emigration, Chernozub continues. Rather “the KPRF in recent years has become a factor of external influence” given its continued support by part of the Russian population and the support that party’s leadership gives to the Chinese government as an alternative model of rule.

            This year, he says, “this ‘testing of the waters’ appears to have shown if not the complete rupture of the social contract between the authorities and the people at least a total breakdown in communication between them, with implications ranging from the metaphorical to the literal.”

            According to Chernozub, the situation has deteriorated to the point that some in the United Russia Party are “claiming that the party has nothing to do with bans now being imposed in Russia” by the government and that these are “merely the machinations of political rivals.”

            Such claims are patently absurd, but they are a clear indivation that the popularity of United Russia or even the powers that be in general are hardly as high as they were and that the results of primaries and the party’s convention show that “the Kremlin recognized this” and is modifying its message if not yet its action.

            The real campaign which is yet to begin will continue this process of “testing the waters,” Chernozub says; but as of now, it is “a big question as to what will come of this second phase or even if anything will come of it at all.” But it may prompt the Kremlin to make adjustments so that its standing with elites and the people won’t continue to fall.