Key Points
- More than 114 million Russians have a right to vote in the three-day election for the country's president.
- Putin's opposition has been criticised as "entirely performative", with several candidates disqualified during the campaign.
- Experts weigh in on some of the election firsts, including the addition of voting in four occupied parts of Ukraine.
Russia is holding its presidential election this weekend, which 71-year-old President Vladimir Putin is almost certain to win.
Victory would give the longest-serving Kremlin chief since Joseph Stalin another six-year term in power. Putin has held continuous power in Russia as prime minister or president since first assuming office in 1999.
The democratic process in Russia has long been questioned, with the addition of election firsts in 2024, such as voting online or voting in occupied Ukrainian territories, drawing further criticism.
When is the Russian presidential election?
Three days of voting will take place from Friday to Sunday, with a remote online voting system also available for the first time.
More than 114 million people are eligible to vote, including almost a million living outside of Russia.
There has been widespread criticism of free voting under Putin's rule, with election monitoring group Golos previously overseeing polling stations and chronicling electoral abuses on its website.
Its co-chairperson, Grigory Melkonyants, is awaiting trial for working with "undesirable" international organisations, which he claims is unjust detention to avoid proper election scrutiny.
Why is Russia's election spread over three days?
The 2024 presidential election is the first time people will have three days to cast their ballot.
Dr Matthew Sussex, visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defence Study Centre at the Australian National University, said on the surface it allows people to get to a polling place.
"In reality, it probably gives the Kremlin more opportunity to make the vote less transparent," he told SBS News.
Who is Vladimir Putin's opposition?
Putin is running against three candidates, Communist Nikolai Kharitonov, the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, and Vladislav Davankov of the New People party.
Dr Robert Horvath, specialist in Russian politics at Victoria's LaTrobe University, told SBS News he believes the "marionette candidates" are "entirely performative" and controlled by the Kremlin.
Davankov, 40, has tried to position himself as someone opposed to excessive curbs on people's personal freedom and the war in Ukraine.
Without mentioning Ukraine by name, he has said he favours "peace and talks ... but on our terms and with no roll-back".
Horvath said this stance is "clearly part of the effort to neutralise anti-war Russians by getting them to vote for a candidate who articulates a moderate pro-war position.”
Much of the Russian opposition adheres to the formal rules of the tightly controlled political system and, despite having seats in parliament, does not oppose the Kremlin on major issues.
Any vocal adversaries, including late opposition politician Alexei Navalny, are either dead, in jail, or have fled abroad.
(left to right) Voting leaflets featuring Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, Russian President Vladimir Putin, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Leonid Slutsky and Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party. Source: Getty / Stringer/AFP
Why are Ukrainians voting in Russia's election?
Early voting has already started in the occupied parts of four Ukrainian regions — Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk — which Russia calls its "new territories".
Sussex said the claim that voting in these areas will be free and fair is "absolute nonsense", following reports that people in these regions were being encouraged to vote at gunpoint.
Horvath said forcing people to vote was "an exercise in pacifying the territories where Russia's control is tenuous".
What anti-Putin polling protest is taking place?
Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has called for a massive election-day protest against Putin.
In one of his last public messages, Navalny urged people to protest against Putin by voting en masse at noon local time on Sunday and overwhelm polling stations with large crowds.
Horvath said the "noon for Putin" protest was a "safer" and smart way to challenge an authoritarian regime in which political protests result in swift detention.
"It's a way for ordinary people who are worried about the future of their families and their own safety, it's a bit safer for them to express their position by being part of those crowds," he said.
What issues are dominating the agenda?
Sussex said the conflict in Ukraine would "weigh heavily" on the minds of voters, but that Russians would not feel comfortable expressing their views on the war.
"I think what Russians do is they kind of turn inward, they get a bit apathetic about politics and they just focus on things that affect their daily lives.
"A good example being egg prices, for instance, things that affect them in terms of their person, their wallet."
What is the support for Putin?
A state polling firm said in February its research showed more than 75 per cent of Russians were ready to vote for Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel.
Reviled by Kremlin critics as an autocratic war criminal who rules by fear, opinion polls at home indicate a majority of Russians view him as the kind of tough leader needed to stand up to what they regard as a meddling and expansionist West.
- with additional reporting by Reuters
