Vladimir Putin will win the elections by a wide margin. The apparatus of the old services organization will take care of that.
The triumphant votes, regardless of whether they can be lied to, will serve to expand the war and try to fuel the rift between its Western enemies. The elections that will consecrate Putin's fifth consecutive term are a dramatization that will add predictable successes to the current war in Ukraine, writes Frida Ghitis. She says Putin, with these ways, walks in the footprint that Stalin traced to shield his power.