Russia’s presidential election is nearing. We already know who the winner will be

 

Russia is nearing a presidential election that is all but certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s rule throughout this decade and into the 2030s.

The vast majority of votes will be cast over three days from 15 March, though early and postal voting has already begun, including in occupied parts of Ukraine where Russian forces are attempting to exert authority.

But this is not a normal election; the poll is essentially a constitutional box-ticking exercise that carries no prospect of removing Putin from power.

The president’s dominance over the Russian electoral system has already been reinforced as the election looms. The country’s only anti-war candidate has been barred from standing, and Alexey Navalny, the poisoned and jailed former opposition leader who was the most prominent anti-Putin voice in Russia, died last Friday.

Here’s what you need to know about the election.

When and where will the election take place?

Voting will be held from Friday March 15 until Sunday March 17, the first Russian presidential election to take place over three days.

A second round of voting would take place three weeks later if no candidate gets more than half the vote, though it would be a major surprise if that were required. Russians are electing the position of president alone; the next legislative elections, which form the make-up of the Duma, are scheduled for 2026.

Early voting has already begun in hard-to-access areas, with approximately 70,000 people able to case their ballots in remote areas of Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District, according to state news agency TASS. The region makes up more than a third of Russia’s total territory but has only about 5% of its population.

Early voting in Zaporizhzhia, one of four Ukrainian regions Russia said it would annex in September 2022 in violation of international law, began on Sunday, TASS said.

 

Russia has already held regional votes and referenda in those occupied territories, an effort dismissed by the international community as a sham but which the Kremlin sees as central to its campaign of Russification.