"Putin needs a measure of legitimacy. And it [the election] is good for seeming legitimacy. Canceling the election would amount to declaring himself dictator. I also think that he has reason to hope he'll win fair and square. Therefore, I don't see what he has to fear from the election," Liik said.+

The expert added that the Kremlin has unpleasant experience from tampering with elections, which is why it does not want to do it.

"I'm not sure to what extent they would like to falsify the results. The Kremlin has unfortunate experience from massive tampering at the 2011 presidential election, which effectively kicked off the 2011-2012 unrest. Since then, they have been trying to curate elections so to speak, by putting pressure on candidates and influencing voters' choices for there to be less need for direct tampering. I think we have no reason to doubt Putin will be backed by the vast majority and there will be an impressive turnout," Liik suggested.

The expert said that Putin enjoys great popularity and the most worrying aspect is that his rating has gone up among people with higher education.

"Sociologists I have talked to or read lately seem to agree that around 85 percent of Russians really do support Putin at this time, based on different considerations. An interesting and troubling new development is that people with higher education also support Putin more than they used to."

"That is the reality today. So, I believe that at the very least, elections where some candidates have been culled he would also win fair and square right now," Liik added.

Russian authorities have blocked Yekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin from running in the election, while Liik said that neither would have done well anyway. She noted that Putin simply doesn't want a historical record of how many votes anti-war candidates would get al elections.

"It is true that there are no true politicians left on the stage. There were two mildly interesting candidates – Yekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin – who were kept out of elections. Neither is particularly well-known, while they both ran anti-war platforms, and the part of the electorate that opposes the war started aligning with and backing them. But it was never going to be a significant number. We are talking about 1-2 or at most 5 percent. On the other hand, that is a lot of people for a country the size of Russia, and the Kremlin decided to keep both candidates from running."

Liik also said that while there are those who are against the war or dissatisfied with how it's going, that does not mean they do not back Putin at elections.

"I believe that even if the war has an impact on people, it does make them vote against Putin. Different logics are applied there. Many feel that so much has already been sacrificed in the name of winning the war that it is impossible to stop now, and people should fall in line behind the president. Many have bought into the narrative of West versus Russia and this being an existential struggle. I also believe that people with higher education or the elite in Russia simply realize that there is no alternative. They understand that it is impossible to go back to February 23, 2022; that you cannot return to that Russia simply by ending this war. There would be reparations and Russia's reputation would take a hit," Liik said.

"It would be another country sporting a different international position, which is why these people – and I believe this includes many voters with higher education who have recently thrown in with Putin – support Putin, realizing that what he is doing is monstrously criminal, while being unable to see how it could be stopped without things being even worse, also for them personally," she added.

"The situation is nothing short of catastrophic, and if we look at these people or listen to what they have to say, including a lot of former acquaintances, many have become terribly cynical about everything and everyone. I believe it is one way to channel that rather terrible moral situation they find themselves in."

People who are openly against the war have been punished in Russia, and the penalties are rather harsh, Liik pointed out.

"I don't think we can yet compare what is happening to Stalinism. But Brezhnev's day, not to mention Gorbachev's, was a lot more lenient than the reality in Russia today. People who have expressed being anti-war are being treated to very harsh punishments, with the aim being to demonstrate that this is not something people should do and that the punishments are very real indeed."

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