In September 2026, Russia conducted parliamentary elections that functioned less as an expression of popular will than as a ritual confirmation of power already held. President Vladimir Putin's political machinery, refined across more than two decades, delivered a legislature shaped to serve the executive rather than constrain it. Analysts observed not a surprise, but a proof of concept — that autocratic governance, when deeply institutionalized, can sustain itself not through charisma alone but through the quiet, durable architecture of state control.