A year ahead of Russia's presidential election, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told The New York Times that President Vladimir Putin “will be reelected next year with more than 90 percent of the vote.”
Putin, who has been in power either as prime minister or president since the end of 1999, has largely dismantled the elements of democracy and freedom that took root following the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago and has dragged Russia into the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine -- Europe's largest conflict since World War II.
In an interview on August 6, Peskov also made the apparently surprising remark that the Russian presidential poll “is not really democracy, it is costly bureaucracy.”
Putin, who has employed the most severe repression of Russia's political opposition since Soviet times, is expected to easily win reelection.
He has jailed opponents, subjugated the judicial system, and crushed freedom of the press, turning elections largely into farces with ballot-stuffing and voting result manipulation common features.
However, the Kremlin has continued to insist that Russian elections are fair and free. Following the publication of The New York Times article on August 6, Peskov claimed he was misquoted by the U.S. news outlet.
In an interview with the RBK news agency later in the day, Peskov tried to reframe his comments, saying that Russia “theoretically” didn’t need to hold presidential elections because “it’s obvious that Putin will be reelected.”
It is unclear who will seek to challenge Putin in an environment where almost any criticism of the Russian leader leads to harassment and investigations.
Russia last week extended the jail sentence of Russia’s most popular opposition leader, Aleksei Navalny, to 19 years, meaning his prison term would end in 2040.
Navalny, who investigated corruption in the highest echelons of the Russian government, was convicted of extremism charges that he calls nonsense.
He is just one of several opposition leaders who have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms on trumped-up charges since Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine 17 months ago.
Asked whether Russia will seek more Ukrainian territory beyond the four partially occupied provinces Russia illegally annexed in September, Peskov said, "No," adding, “We just want to control all the land we have now written into our constitution as ours.”
But he said no peace deal was possible now. “There are currently no grounds for an agreement,” Peskov said.
“We will continue the operation for the foreseeable future,” he said, using the same term as Putin, who called the invasion of Ukraine "a special military operation," avoiding the word "war."