Putin's 'special electoral operation' could backfire

Installing the new State Duma will not give Putin’s regime any new energy. Whether to enact a new partial mobilization remains a choice between two high-risk options. The Russian public’s tiredness of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine is increasing because of Ukrainian long-distance strikes, and this discontent has found no release in the war-drumming election campaign. International scorn of the quasi-democratic procedure, which was further delegitimized by voting staged on occupied Ukrainian territories, cuts Russia’s democratic credibility down to the level of North Korea, the only other state that is willing to send its soldiers to Russia’s “kill-zone” and defense plants.