Russia continues to hold elections not as an expression of democratic will, but as a carefully maintained instrument of legitimacy — a paradox in which the form of consent is preserved precisely so that its substance can be controlled. The Kremlin has calculated, with considerable sophistication, that the appearance of popular mandate is more durable than the naked exercise of force. In this way, Russia's electoral cycle reveals something broader about how authoritarian power adapts to the democratic age: not by rejecting its institutions, but by hollowing them from within.