Domestic Russia: Security Services, the Economy, and Elections

Today we are turning to domestic Russian politics, with Russia’s State Duma elections coming up September 18th through the 20th. The elections are taking place in a more uncertain domestic environment than we have seen since the early days of the war. The Russian economy is struggling, with slowing growth, inflation, and high interest rates squeezing businesses and households, and the Kremlin is facing increasingly difficult trade-offs between sustaining the war and maintaining economic stability at home. There is also more public recognition that Russia’s progress on the battlefield is stalling. And as Ukraine steps up attacks deep inside Russia, the war is becoming harder for ordinary Russians to ignore, with strikes on refineries and energy infrastructure contributing to fuel shortages and long petrol lines in parts of the country, including in Moscow. Although it is unclear whether the Kremlin itself is worried about instability, the regime continues its efforts to eliminate even limited sources of political uncertainty. Most recently, the Kremlin barred Yabloko, the only established party campaigning on an anti-war platform, from participating in the elections, and repression and censorship continue to narrow the space for dissent.

None of this means President Vladimir Putin is losing control. The Kremlin has spent years constructing a political system designed to prevent precisely that. But the elections come at a moment when pressures on the system are becoming harder to conceal. So today, to examine what these elections can tell us about the state of Russian politics and just how stable the Putin regime really is, we are excited to welcome Mark Galeotti and Sasha Prokopenko to Brussels Sprouts. Mark Galeotti is the director of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence and a non-resident senior fellow at the Institute for International Relations Prague. Alexandra “Sasha” Prokopenko is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.