We’re six weeks out from the first parliamentary elections in Russia since tanks trundled across the Ukrainian border, and Vladimir Putin is facing a dilemma.
His party, United Russia, is hardly in danger of losing. Unlike the hundreds of representatives across America sweating profusely ahead of the midterms, the Russian president’s decades-long cultivation of authoritarian rule means his party members don’t have to campaign too hard.
But even a quasi-dictator presiding over a stage-managed vote has to be careful, because Ukraine’s military campaign has scored some significant victories as of late.
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Kyiv’s effective campaign of long-range strikes on oil refineries, energy infrastructure and the warehouses of Russia’s largest e-commerce company, Wildberries, has squeezed revenues and triggered nasty fuel shortages at home. The front line may be holding steady, but Ukraine’s armed forces are ripping through Russian soldiers at an alarming rate.
Most of the options available to Putin to address these challenges would be wildly unpopular and a risky prospect this close to State Duma elections. But the longer he attempts to shield Russian society from the bite of war, the stronger Kyiv’s position grows.
To Mobilize, Or Not To Mobilize…
In September 2022, six months into a “special military operation” in Ukraine that Moscow expected to last a matter of days or weeks, the Russian Defense Ministry announced it was calling up some 300,000 reservists in a sweeping mobilization.
Public response was clear. In the week following the announcement, 66,000 Russian citizens fled the country and entered the European Union, according to data collected by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency—a 30 percent increase on the previous week. Many more headed south into Kazakhstan and Georgia.
Today, Russian battlefield losses are severe, but nobody knows quite how severe. Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces claimed the Russian army’s losses outstripped the number of fresh recruits from December to April, while Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said roughly 200,000 people signed Defense Ministry contracts in the first half of 2026, comfortably meeting manpower requirements.
Either way, months of costly fighting have produced no decisive strategic breakthrough. This has led to widespread rumors that another major mobilization is in the offing, four years on from the first.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told British broadcaster Sky News that Moscow would call up between 300,000-500,000 soldiers later this year, and many Russian military bloggers have concluded that mobilization is the only way to make headway in Ukraine.
The speculation drove some of Russia’s leading media personalities and politicians, including veteran state-broadcaster Vladimir Solovyov and Chairman of the State Duma’s Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov, to assure the public last month that there is “no need for mobilization.” Solovyov later said Russian military bloggers spreading such rumors should be prosecuted.
In the meantime, Russian authorities are taking a carrot, rather than a stick, approach to try and boost recruitment figures.
On July 22, the State Duma removed another 11 criminal offenses from the list of crimes that prevent defendants and convicts from signing military contracts. Among the crimes struck off the list were drug smuggling, people smuggling and gang assault.
Regional authorities are also raising the ceiling of one-off bonus payments for those willing to join the military, while the Moscow Times revealed the Defense Ministry had launched recruitment drives at Russian universities.
An autocrat hell-bent on eking out a resounding display of national unity at countrywide elections cannot risk creating border queues of military-age men weeks before polling day with a hasty military mobilization.
Things Just Keep Exploding…
Ukraine’s recent spate of attacks on facilities belonging to Russia’s answer to Amazon has rightly made headlines worldwide.
Last month, Russian media estimated that 10 percent of Wildberries’ warehouse space had gone up in flames, while a renewed estimate published earlier this week by Russian independent outlet Vyorstka said more than a quarter of total logistics space had been damaged, leading to a dramatic drop-off in order deliveries to collection points in Moscow.
Such strikes impact Russian consumers by causing price hikes, order cancellations and making popular products unavailable, and also kill off small- and medium-sized businesses reliant on Wildberries to ship their products, experts told Newsweek.
But it is Ukraine’s incessant destruction of Russian oil and gas refineries and energy infrastructure that causes Putin the biggest headache.
Since June, most Russian regions have struggled with well-documented fuel shortages; motorists have faced hourslong queues, gasoline and diesel rationing, and of course, high prices at the pump.
This is because gasoline production in Russia was down roughly one-third in June and July versus the same time last year, according to an analysis of trading data by the New Eurasian Strategies Center (NEST), meaning the country is now consuming more gasoline than it can produce.
NEST Senior Research Fellow Sergey Aleksashenko warned that domestic gasoline stocks would be near empty by the autumn if the decline continues unabated. Putin will hope he means after the elections.
The damage is also showing up in export figures; the Kyiv School of Economics’ oil tracker found that Russian oil-product exports fell to a record low of 1.6 million barrels per day in June.
These factors have ground Russia’s economic growth almost to a halt. The Central Bank cut its 2026 GDP forecast to between zero and one percent last month, and raised its inflation forecast to between six and seven percent.
To keep the money coming in, the government ushered in blanket tax reforms at the turn of the year. Alongside an across-the-board value-added tax increase from 20 to 22 percent, businesses were forced to confront more stringent regulations because lawmakers lowered the threshold at which companies must pay VAT from 60 million rubles to 20 million rubles.
The legislation lowers that ceiling further by another 5 million rubles in each of the next two years, down to just 10 million rubles in 2028. At today’s exchange rate, that’s less than $130,000.
For now, the Kremlin can still finance its war, but each passing month creates more visible losers.
Consumers are paying higher prices across the board, from gas to VAT and the contents of their online shopping baskets. Businesses are absorbing punishing new taxes while facing stock shortages, product delivery problems and delayed payments.
United Russia Sitting Pretty, For Now
For Putin’s party members, these factors are unlikely to make much of a dent in their popularity ahead of September.
United Russia currently controls more than 300 seats in the 450-seat Duma, well above the supermajority needed to pass legislation without support; Putin can comfortably lose a few seats with no material effect on his ability to govern.
“Russian public opinion shows significant frustration among certain groups, mainly pro-war constituencies and the more independent parts of the urban working class and small business owners,” Ella Paneyakh, Senior Research Fellow and Head of Sociology at NEST, told Newsweek. “The key question, however, is whether this frustration will translate into any form of electoral behavior. Given the very short time frame and the lack of organization, I think this is unlikely.”
But in a country where elections have long been foregone conclusions, there are still ways to gauge whether the ruling party is as popular as it’d like you to believe.
In March, United Russia announced it was targeting 55 percent of the election votes, with a 50 percent voter turnout expected, based on targets set by the Presidential Executive Office. Independent media outlet Meduza last month reported the Kremlin had subsequently lowered those targets to 50 percent of votes, then again to 45 percent in some regions.
Then, there are the polls. It’s notoriously difficult to accurately gauge public sentiment in Russia, but Gallup found that 60 percent of Russians surveyed from March through May believed their local economy was worsening—the bleakest reading in two decades. Some 56 percent added they felt their standard of living was in decline. Even polls conducted by state-run institutions posted a notable downturn in Putin’s popularity last month.
United Russia will get its victory in September, complete with choreographed displays of patriotic enthusiasm and a result good enough to keep Putin’s political machinery grinding on.
But Ukraine isn’t planning to defeat Putin at the ballot box.