Because even in dictatorships, making a large enough percentage of people hate you is dangerous to your rule. There's a reason authoritarians tend to crack down on people that publicly criticize them
Because Putin is perceived by Russians as something like a drought - you adapt and coexist with this. The elections are the period where people tend to self-reflect on their future.
The dangers of it are not the fact that Mr. Putin won't be elected, the problem is sabotage. I remember in 2014 I talked with my ex's father's friend - he was a colonel in the Russian army, artillery namely. He was telling stories about a unit that was sent to Ukraine that hadn't been aiming properly on purpose and even had been communicating their position with their Ukrainian peers for them to do the same. I wish something similar would've happened in 2022.
I assume that the war objectives were to remove nazism from Ukraine right?
They can basically confirm that it is "no longer an issue" and leave without losing face. But I guess Russians want to be fooled
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