{"id":16858,"date":"2024-03-12T12:46:59","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T12:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/12\/despite-scenes-of-defiance-plenty-of-russians-support-putin-as-election-nears\/"},"modified":"2024-03-12T12:46:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T12:46:59","slug":"despite-scenes-of-defiance-plenty-of-russians-support-putin-as-election-nears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/12\/despite-scenes-of-defiance-plenty-of-russians-support-putin-as-election-nears\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite scenes of defiance, plenty of Russians support Putin as election nears"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

There is an inevitability about\u00a0the outcome of\ufeff\u00a0Russia\u2019s looming presidential election. <\/p>\n

Like it or not, Vladimir Putin, the man driving a catastrophic war in Ukraine, a brutal crackdown on dissent, and a lurch toward isolation in Russia, now the most sanctioned nation on earth, is poised to win a fifth term in the Kremlin and appears as much in control of Russia\u00a0as\u00a0at any time over the past 24 years. <\/p>\n

You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given the unprecedented scenes of defiance across Russia in the weeks before the vote, as thousands turned out at makeshift memorials to Alexey Navalny, the prominent Russian opposition leader who died suddenly in an Arctic penal colony last month. <\/p>\n

Hundreds were detained, according to one human rights group, for simply laying flowers\u00a0<\/strong>in his memory. <\/p>\n

The crackdown didn\u2019t stop thousands of determined people attending his funeral in Moscow either and even now, as Russia goes to the polls\u00a0\u2013 with nationwide voting taking place Friday to Sunday\u00a0\u2013 a steady stream of mourners meanders\u00a0past his grave site in a small but continuing act of defiance to the Kremlin. <\/p>\n

\u201cI will go to vote, but now maybe just write his name,\u201d he added, suggesting he will spoil his ballot. <\/p>\n

One young woman named Yulia, who had just laid flowers on Navalny\u2019s grave,\u00a0said\u00a0she remained optimistic there would be change in Russia, though not soon. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven though Alexey Navalny is dead, there is always hope,\u201d she said, \u201cI think there are always people who do not support Vladimir Putin,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

But there are also plenty of Russians who do, at least for now. <\/p>\n

\u2018He made Russia a much better country\u2019<\/h2>\n

Putin\u2019s pariah status in the West, where\u00a0the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for\u00a0alleged\u00a0war crimes, the so-called \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine that is estimated\u00a0to have inflicted hundreds of thousands of casualties\u00a0on both sides, and even the hardships and brutal suppressions at home seem hardly to have dented his approval ratings. <\/p>\n

The\u00a0latest polling, from the respected Levada Center in Moscow, puts public trust in Putin at an astonishing 86%. <\/p>\n

Of course, in a country where critics are routinely jailed, exiled or killed, public opinion polls are flawed. Another factor is the constant pro-Kremlin propaganda pumped out on state-controlled media, where most Russians get their news. <\/p>\n

But as this election approaches, you can\u2019t discount what so many ordinary Russians tell you, face to face. <\/p>\n

In the suburbs of northern Moscow, a vast Soviet-era exhibition park is staging \u201cRussia\u201d \u2013 a showcase of the country\u2019s achievements in industry and agriculture, the arts and warfare. <\/p>\n

And while Navalny\u2019s funeral was attended by\u00a0notable\u00a0numbers, this one exhibition center attracts tens of thousands\u00a0of people\u00a0every week, many of them domestic tourists with their families visiting the capital, like pilgrims, from Russia\u2019s distant corners. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe will definitely vote for Putin, he made Russia a much better country,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Dmitry,\u00a0a\u00a041-year-old real estate worker from the Komi Republic, in Russia\u2019s far north,\u00a0who was\u00a0visiting Moscow with his wife. <\/p>\n

Asked\u00a0about the war in Ukraine and if he held Putin responsible\u00a0for Russia\u2019s involvement, he replied:\u00a0\u201cNo, we support him in it. Victory will be ours and if it is needed, I will go and fight too.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sergey, a 25-year-old office worker,\u00a0said\u00a0he felt his job was secure and stable, with good health benefits. He rejected\u00a0any\u00a0suggestion\u00a0that\u00a0international sanctions on Russia had made the country poorer. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t feel any impact of sanctions as an ordinary Russian citizen,\u201d he\u00a0insisted. <\/p>\n

Artyom, a 30-year-old design engineer and an enthusiastic Putin supporter,\u00a0said\u00a0the war in Ukraine and the tensions with the West\u00a0had\u00a0put Russia on the right path. <\/p>\n

\u201cRussia\u00a0needs to be acknowledged in the world arena; we are not a second-class country,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Unexpected challenges<\/h2>\n

It is an insecurity that Putin has long been able to successfully tap, and his efforts to bolster Russian pride, as well as to boost living standards in the country, have delivered genuine popular support over many years. <\/p>\n

What is unclear now, though, is how much longer that support will last, especially if Russian war casualties mount, crackdowns on dissent gather pace and economic hardships dig in. <\/p>\n

Already there have been serious and unexpected challenges. <\/p>\n

Even before the public mourning of Navalny, thousands of Russians came out to support the nomination of an anti-war presidential hopeful, Boris Nadezhdin, whose candidature was ultimately rejected by the Russian election authorities. <\/p>\n

But his collection of tens of thousands of signatures of support was a sharp reminder that while the result of the upcoming presidential election in Russia may be inevitable, Putin\u2019s popularity among ordinary Russians could eventually face a serious challenge. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is an inevitability about\u00a0the outcome of\ufeff\u00a0Russia\u2019s looming presidential election. Like it or not, Vladimir Putin, the man driving a catastrophic war in Ukraine, a brutal crackdown on dissent, and a lurch toward isolation in Russia, now the most sanctioned nation on earth, is poised to win a fifth term in the Kremlin and appears <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}