Russians will head to the polls for a presidential election held from March 15 to 17, 2024, the first national election since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. President Vladimir Putin, who initially served in the role from 2000 to 2008, remained the de facto paramount leader while assuming the premiership, and again became president in 2012, is expected to be reelected. Though President Putin operates as the de facto leader of the United Russia party, which holds a supermajority in the State Duma, he will once again run as an independent. 

The 2018 presidential elections, in which President Putin won a reported 77.53 percent of the vote, “took place in an overly controlled legal and political environment marked by continued pressure on critical voices,” according to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s observation mission. In the years between the 2018 election and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Putin stifled Russia’s political opposition. During the January 2021 protests across the country in support of Alexei Navalny, the opposition politician who was poisoned in 2020 and arrested in 2021, law enforcement officials attacked protestors and detained over 1,500 people. In March 2022, a court sentenced Navalny to nine years in prison; he still faces additional charges. Navalny’s family, his colleagues at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, members of his legal defense team, and his supporters have been charged, imprisoned, or forced to flee the country. 

President Putin has introduced a host of repressive measures to bolster support for the war. Individuals, news outlets, and other institutions have faced strict censorship and editorial pressure from the government. People within Russia must refer to the war as a “special military operation,” and can face up to 15 years in prison for “discrediting” or spreading “false information” about the Russian military or other actors supporting the war. Most independent news outlets have closed or relocated outside of Russia due to increasing legal and extralegal pressure applied by the state, including the designation of many outlets as “foreign agents” or “undesirable organizations.” There is little room for dissent concerning the war, economy, and President Putin himself: though some small anti-war protests occurred in the aftermath of the invasion and the mobilization of reservists, none matched the scale of the January 2021 protests.

The war and the economic sanctions imposed in response loom large over the election; President Putin has made them central to his campaign messaging. The “partial mobilization” of the Russian military that President Putin implemented in September 2022, mandating the mobilization of 300,000 reservists, may shape voter perceptions of the war, especially after lawmakers moved to strengthen conscription measures in the spring of 2023. United States- and European Union-led sanctions continue to impact Russia’s economy. For example, people across Russia faced major issues with their heating systems in early 2024.

Freedom House has identified the following as key digital interference issues to watch ahead of election day:

• Website blocks and content removal: The Russian government’s widespread website blocking ramped up dramatically in the wake of the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Roskomnadzor, the country’s internet regulator, and other state agencies have ordered the blocking of websites critical of the government, including independent Russian news sites, Ukrainian news sites, international news sites, websites of nongovernmental organizations, and the websites and servers of virtual private networks (VPNs). Moreover, in March 2022, the government blocked access to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for content moderation actions the platforms took against Russian-state affiliated accounts. The Kremlin continues to issue content removal orders and ensuing fines to the platforms that still operate in the country. State-owned VK and other platforms of domestic origin routinely comply with the state’s removal orders, which have increased since the full-scale invasion, and suppress critical content through moderation algorithms. Ahead of the election, the government could expand its website blocking practices, with a particular focus on VPNs, and block the remaining foreign platforms and messengers still operating in-country, such as Telegram, YouTube, and WhatsApp. 
• Arrests and prosecutions: Individuals who criticize the Russian government or the invasion of Ukraine online are regularly punished with criminal sentences and administrative fines. The laws that criminalize discrediting and spreading false information about the Russian military and other private actors supporting the war have been used to suppress critical voices. In June 2023, Roman Ushakov, a popular Telegram blogger, was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for allegedly spreading “false” news about the military, rehabilitating Nazism, and inciting hatred. According to The Online Freedoms Project, prosecutors opened 779 cases concerning online expression in 2022, a record in the project’s 15-year existence. Moreover, government agencies monitor social media applications for content critical of the government, and in some cases arrest users based on this surveillance. The stark increase in prosecutions over the past two years raises concern that those who dare to mobilize or speak out against President Putin could face imprisonment. 
• Information manipulation: The Russian government routinely manipulates content and spreads online propaganda to advance its narratives both domestically and abroad. The government’s increased control over online media sources and Russian social media platforms, including VK, further enable it to curate the information space in its own favor. This practice extends to messaging applications: an October 2022 study from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab found that nine of the ten most popular “political” Telegram channels in the country spewed pro-government propaganda. The government has also paid trolls to support its narratives. For instance, in March 2022, the Cyber ??Front Z Telegram channel, which was linked to the notorious Internet Research Agency, employed people to post comments on other platforms in support of the Russian army’s invasion of Ukraine. The government will likely continue to use a variety of means to manipulate the online environment ahead of the election. 
• Internet shutdowns: In recent years, the Kremlin has refrained from shutting down the internet, instead opting to engage in the mass blocking of websites and social media platforms (The Kremlin most recently restricted local access to the internet in response to protests ahead of 2019 elections). The government continues to pursue the so-called “sovereign internet,” a project initiated in 2019 to cut Russia off from the global internet. Testing the sovereign internet’s ability to disconnect from global connections in the summer of 2023 appeared to fail, but subsequent advances in the Kremlin’s website blocking techniques suggest that the government could be closer to reaching its goal. Heightened tensions during the electoral period could compel the government to impose connectivity restrictions. 

Russia has a score of 13 out of 100, with 100 representing the least vulnerability in terms of election integrity, on Freedom House’s Election Vulnerability Index, which is based on a selection of key election-related indicators. The score reflects widespread website blocking, rampant disinformation, and repressive laws deployed to prosecute individuals for their online activities. The country is rated Not Free in Freedom in the World 2023, with a score of 16 out of 100 with respect to its political rights and civil liberties; Not Free in Freedom on the Net 2023, with an internet freedom score of 21 out of 100; and as a Consolidated Authoritarian Regime in Nations in Transit 2023, with a score of 2 out of 100 for the country’s democratic progress. To learn more about these annual Freedom House assessments, please visit the Russia country reports in Freedom in the World, Freedom on the Net, and Nations in Transit.