Putin will go to the elections under the slogan of “moral superiority” of the Russian Federation

The Kremlin’s election campaign for the 2024 Russian presidential election will be based on the “ideology of conservatism.” At a recent seminar of the President’s Administration, regional officials and political technologists, high-ranking employees of the Kremlin, headed by the deputy head of the administration, Sergei Kyryenko, told about this – Meduza reports, citing sources from among the participants of the seminar.

It follows from the words of Kremlin representatives that Putin will run for a fifth term – the amendment to the Constitution adopted in 2020 on the so-called nullification of terms gives him such an opportunity. At the same time, Putin will be positioned as a “keeper of traditional values.” The bet will also be made on the rhetoric about Russia’s “moral superiority” over other countries, especially Western ones.

As Meduza sources note, since 2021, that is, since the beginning of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has been working on the concept of Russia as a “state in itself”, self-sufficient and with little interaction with the outside world. After the start of the war, the theme of the so-called “Russian world” was also created under this idea.

On the eve of the elections, Kremlin officials must formulate the so-called “DNA of Russia”. The project is carried out by the “Znanie” society, headed by the same Kyriyenko. We are talking about certain “value constants” supposedly inherent in Russia, among which are “community, a sense of duty and overarching goals, existential stability and the priority of the intangible over the mercantile.” The administration believes that there is a growing demand for such conservatism in Russian society.

• Putin often touches on the topic of traditional values, often reducing them to a rejection of the ideas of gender equality and LGBT rights. Almost every one of his speeches on this topic features the so-called parents number one and number two, supposedly replacing father and mother in the West, and criticism of the so-called LGBT propaganda.

As RBC reported earlier and the same “Meduza” wrote, the participants of the meeting were given the task of surpassing Putin’s result in the 2018 elections – then he won almost 80% of the votes with a turnout of slightly less than 70%. Independent observers and analysts claim that due to falsifications, these official results should be viewed with skepticism – in many regions, the number of recorded votes in support of Putin is clearly higher than the real ones. The authorities deny falsification.

The event was also reportedly attended by representatives of the self-proclaimed Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Before Putin’s message to the Federal Assembly on February 21, rumors spread on the Internet and mass media that the inclusion of these territories into Russia might be initiated. This did not happen, however, Meduza’s sources claim that the Russian authorities have still not given up on the idea of ​​annexing these territories, which the vast majority of countries in the world consider to be part of Georgia.