{"id":777348,"date":"2026-09-21T01:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T01:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/777348\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T01:40:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T01:40:17","slug":"russias-elections-had-few-surprises-but-how-the-kremlin-uses-the-results-is-far-from-clear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/777348\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia’s elections had few surprises – but how the Kremlin uses the results is far from clear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahead of the final day of this three-day election, Ukraine had launched a large-scale drone attack on the Moscow area<\/a>. The city’s oil refinery was hit.<\/p>\n

At a polling station near the oil refinery, I spoke to voters about the attack.<\/p>\n

Here, too, there was little surprise at what had transpired.<\/p>\n

More than four and a half years into Russia’s war on Ukraine, Muscovites had grown used to their city periodically becoming a front line. Instead of astonishment, there was quiet resignation.<\/p>\n

“People in the Donbas, as well as in Bryansk, and Belgorod near the Ukrainian border, hear this kind of thing every day,” says a voter called Viktor, who has exited the polling station.<\/p>\n

“They just get on with their lives.”<\/p>\n

If the outcome of this election was predictable, what happens next is less clear.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin will likely use the result to claim that most Russians have rallied behind the president, and to justify future policies and subsequent decisions on the war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Putin recently ruled out another wave of mobilisation.<\/p>\n

“There is no scenario today that would require it,” he declared.<\/p>\n

Not today. But what about tomorrow?<\/p>\n

Despite official denials, in Russian society there remains deep anxiety over the possibility of a new mobilisation.<\/p>\n

At the very least, the Kremlin is likely to treat the election result as a “mandate from the people” to continue the war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahead of the final day of this three-day election, Ukraine had launched a large-scale drone attack on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-777348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}