Challenged on the question as to what it would now take to bring about peace, one friend, in inimitable fashion, re-iterated his long-held belief of the need for Russian president Vladimir Putin to “go up the road with something in his jaikit.”

It’s not the sort of expression you’re likely to hear in Moscow’s Alexandrovsky Hall, Washington’s West Wing or other corridors of diplomatic power, but my friend’s point is well made.

It wasn’t that he was arguing the case for appeasement of Putin, but rather that any peace deal over Ukraine would necessitate the Russian leader appearing to have secured a victory of sorts to sustain his political survival. Looking strong and acting accordingly after all has always been Putin’s modus operandi in this regard.

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Anyone who doubts this need look no further than the Kremlin’s ever tightening grip over Russian society and its citizens. 

The expansion of repression, silencing of negative reporting about the war and the economy, internet shutdowns and new restrictions on social media, have all become the order of the day. It’s all a stark contrast to the comparative freedoms Russians were allowed before 2022 when Putin decided to invade Ukraine. 

And speaking of the Russian people, in just a few weeks’ time, they will go to the polls in a nationwide election to elect a new State Duma and regional officials.

While Putin’s political control is paramount here, it’s important though to recognise that his government is not yet a monolith, and that there still exists space, albeit small, for some degree of political debate and expression. This though is being snuffed out by the day as the run-up to this month’s election shows.

Already Putin has methodically moved to silence any anti-war voices. Last month it was the turn of Yabloko, the only legally registered political party in Russia to openly condemn and oppose the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

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Their campaign platform, which actively advocates for a ceasefire, diplomacy, and peace, is clearly taboo to Putin, who utilised Russia’s judicial system to exclude the party from standing in the elections.

With only a handful of regional ​seats, Yabloko were never going to dent the dominance of the Putin-backed United ‌Russia party in the September vote, but their effective banning speaks volumes about the Kremlin’s unease over how the war in Ukraine is going down among Russia’s citizens.

For years now, Putin’s objective has been to prevent ordinary Russians from noticing the war by simply and disingenuously designating it as a “special military operation”. But that façade has now crumbled as Ukrainian drone and missile strikes hit harder and deeper into Russia. 

The rising smoke from such attacks on refineries and other installations, along with queues for fuel and near collapse of the country’s extensive e-commerce system, means that any cover up is now impossible.

Likewise, the financial incentives to attract civilian men to join the military have lost their lustre as news of the frontline “meat grinder” leaks to those back home. 

In short, Russians today, unlike a year or two ago, are under few illusions about the reality of the conflict in which they are now so embroiled, and it’s against this very changed backdrop that they will vote this month.

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Even with Yabloko’s exclusion from the ballot, the election is sure to serve as a barometer of Russian public opinion for the Kremlin. 

Likewise, it will simultaneously provide an insight for Western observers into how four years of war in Ukraine have impacted on Russia’s political landscape.

Some commentators are even of the view that this insight has already revealed Putin’s hand, maintaining that the Russian leader is set to escalate the war. 

Why else would the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, unexpectedly fly to Moscow a few weeks ago, such commentators ask, if not to warn the Russian leader not to attack NATO countries?

In truth, the actual reason for the American spy chief’s visit remains unclear, but this has done little to alleviate concerns that something serious is now afoot.

For both Russia and Ukraine, the war has become a pernicious contest of drone and missile attacks and with every day that passes, the stakes grow. Putin knows this, and while publicly continues to insist that the war is mostly going to plan, he is also doubtless acutely aware that this is a war Russians can now see, feel, and recognise as close to home.

There are growing rumours too of another round of mobilisation that has unnerved many Russians, even if Putin has dismissed this as “complete nonsense” and an “information attack on Russia.” 

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But a recent spike in traffic on Russia’s southern border with Georgia tells a different story, with more than 113,000 Russians reportedly having left their country last week via the so-called Upper Lars checkpoint. 

The uptick in movement reflects growing fears of another military call-up say rights groups, with authorities inside Russia ramping up data collection on reservists, and expanding the National Guard’s remit. 

Russians have been here before of course. Back in September 2022 Putin launched a partial military mobilisation that called up some 300,000 men and Georgia became the main destination for those looking to flee.

Ever since the very start of the war, Putin’s key objective has always been about preserving his own political power, and ultimately saving his own skin. 

For that reason, this month’s elections will likely pass off without any serious dissent from a  population faced with the Putin’s repression.

For the Kremlin though the vote remains an important instrument for it to project popular legitimacy and demonstrate support for Putin and his United Russia party, even as both take a hammering in approval ratings.

That said, as one Russian commentator recently summed it up in an interview with Politico magazine, it’s hard to escape the sense that “the “social contract” between the Kremlin and the Russian people, is “visibly crumbling.”

If that is truly the case, then Putin is politically cornered and unlikely to “go up the road with something in his jaikit”, as my drinking pal suggested as being a prerequisite for peace. That in itself  should be enough to set alarm bells ringing over what the future of Russia’s war in Ukraine holds in store.