The Russian "Elections" took place this week. Vlad swooped the competition as expected, securing his fifth term as President. Putin has now served over twenty years as the head of the Russian State and will serve a further six years in office.
The election turnout is the highest in Russian history, with 77.46% or 87,113,127 voters, including some voting taking place electronically. Whether these votes actually matter is an entirely different topic, but it seems Putin's sole reason for holding elections is to create an air of legitimacy around himself.
Threats to Putin's power have been non-existent, with the death of opposition leader Alex Navalny in prison and the disqualification of Boris Nadezhdin (the only anti-war candidate) by the Central Election Commission. The AP-NORC Poll found that 67% of Russians approved of Putin's handling of foreign affairs, and 63% approved of Russia's action in Ukraine (January 2024).
This end of the week has been marred by a terror attack in Russia, leaving 90 people dead. ISIS-K has claimed responsibility, and this supposedly has been confirmed by US intelligence.
On ISIS
A video has emerged of a captured perpetrator, who seems to be of Tajik descent, claiming he was paid and unaware of who his employer was. The Tajik proponent could explain the link to ISIS as the flow of returning Chechen, Tajik, and Uzbek ISIS fighters into the Central Asian region, coupled with the racial hierarchy between Tajiks and Russians, could signal a whole new war for the Kremlin.
State-Actor Influence
Amidst the war in Ukraine and despite ISIS claiming responsibility (which they do for almost every attack), this may be a state actor-influenced attack attempting to further the divide between the Kremlin and the Russian public, whilst simultaneously highlighting to Putin that the West and other actors can indeed breach Russia through unconventional means. This attack demonstrates that Russia is not the iron-clad fortress it has made itself seem.
False Flag?
Originally, when the attack took place and before ISIS claimed responsibility, it seemed this was a retaliatory attack for the war in Ukraine. However, it could easily be a false flag for the Kremlin to legitimize its war in Ukraine to the Russian public.
The Kremlin is taking a stance that exacerbates Ukrainian involvement and stated that "the perpetrators were fleeing towards the Ukrainian border," even though the Ukrainians deny involvement.