‘He perceives this as real support’

Kremlin insiders weigh in on the record-breaking voting results reported for Vladimir Putin

After three days of tightly controlled and coerced voting, Vladimir Putin has secured another six-year term as Russia’s president. According to election officials, turnout exceeded 77 percent, and Putin took home roughly 87 percent of the vote — breaking all records in the history of modern Russia. Having topped the official results of the election Aleksandr Lukashenko stole in Belarus in 2020, Putin’s latest win is drawing comparisons with autocratic leaders in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, who typically claim more than 90 percent of the vote. For the inside scoop on what Kremlin officials think about the voting results, Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev spoke to sources close to the Putin administration, a political strategist, and regional officials. Here’s what they said.

The Putin administration’s political bloc actually exceeded the targets set for the 2024 presidential vote. As Meduza reported previously, Kremlin officials tasked Russia’s regional governments with securing 70 percent voter turnout and 80 percent support for Putin. According to one election strategy document obtained by Meduza, the leadership of one Russian region set themselves this exact target and planned to achieve it primarily through mobilizing public sector employees and the employees of companies close to the state.

But in the weeks before the vote, the Putin administration began to express a “desire” for the incumbent to win upwards of 80 percent, two regional officials told Meduza on condition of anonymity. As a result, 80 percent support was perceived as an absolute minimum and many regions decided to aim for 85. As a Meduza source close to the administration put it, the head of the Kremlin’s political bloc, Sergey Kiriyenko, really “wanted to show the president very high numbers — and that’s what he did.”

At the same time, a political strategist working with the Putin administration in one Russian region highlighted another contributing factor in the sky-high results for Putin: Russia’s far eastern regions “set the bar to wow,” prompting the rest of the country to follow suit. “The Far East tallies the results earlier and then the other regions want to show better numbers,” he explained.

Indeed, most of the regions in Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District reported that Putin won more than 85 percent of the vote. The Khabarovsk Krai, which Kremlin officials consider a “protest region,” was the exception, reporting 80 percent support for Putin.

A regional official also told Meduza that Putin’s envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District steered local administrations towards the target of 85 percent. The presidential envoy, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev, “wanted to demonstrate that the Far East is the president’s base and not an opposition territory,” the official said.

‘They won’t be punished for a victory’

Kremlin officials don’t see a problem with Putin achieving such high numbers. Two sources close to the Putin administration told Meduza that Kiriyenko is pleased with the election results and doesn’t consider them “overkill or falsified bullshit.” According to a source close to United Russia’s leadership, Kiriyenko has already made personal phone calls to most of Russia’s governors to thank them for their help in the elections.

“No matter what anyone says [about regional officials] ‘overdoing it’ or ‘going overboard,’ they won’t be punished for a victory. The Supreme Leader likes it; he perceives this as real support. [Kiriyenko] knows how to present it to him and sell it, that’s the main thing,” said a source close to the Kremlin.

Another source close to the Putin administration drew special attention to the results reported in Moscow. According to election officials, Putin won more than 85 percent of the vote in the capital — a number just below the national average. “Before there was a gap — [it was] more than five percent in the last campaign. Now Moscow is an exemplary, loyal region. [Mayor Sergey] Sobyanin can sell this to the president as his [personal] achievement; he pacified the capital,” the source said.

The runner-up in the election, Communist Party (KPRF) candidate Nikolai Kharitonov, netted 4.31 percent of the vote. New People Party candidate Vladislav Davankov and LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky scraped up 3.85 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. This means that all three of Putin’s “challengers” surpassed the required threshold for their parties to receive around 500 million rubles ($5.4 million) in federal funding.

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Initially, the Putin administration hoped Slutsky would come in second, but after he failed on the campaign trail, the Kremlin didn’t bother to significantly rig the vote in his favor. On election day, Meduza’s sources close to the presidential administration said that Davankov was most likely to take second place, but they also said that Kharitonov still stood a chance.

“Davankov wouldn’t have been prevented [from coming in second]. In many regions he really did come in second place, but he fell short. And the KPRF’s electorate of true believers came out in support of Kharitonov. Plus, he was a more comfortable [candidate] for the administrations of the southern regions and national republics, where Davankov is an obscure [figure],” explained a source close to the Kremlin.

Pro-Kremlin media, he added, still plans to spin Kharitonov’s results as a defeat for the KPRF, underscoring that the party achieved “a record low result and didn’t reach 10 percent.”

As Meduza reported previously, Kremlin officials weren’t overly concerned with who would be the runner-up. “They didn’t interfere with Kharitonov either,” the source said. “Second place with four percent isn’t second place with 10 percent. All [the candidates were] equally weak — except the one in first place.”

Story by Andrey Pertsev

Translation by Eilish Hart