Russia’s presidential election is nearing. We already know who the winner will be

Candidates at Russian elections are tightly controlled by the CEC, enabling Putin to run against a favorable field and reducing the potential for an opposition candidate to gain momentum. The same is true this year. “Each candidate fields juxtaposing ideologies and domestic policies, but collectively they feed into Putin’s aim of tightening his grip on Russia during his next presidential term,” Callum Fraser of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank wrote.