Ivanov faced charges for reporting on the Bucha massacre and other alleged war crimes by the Russian military during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Just last summer, however, Peskov was more equivocal about the state of Russian democracy.
“Our presidential election is not really a democracy, it is a costly bureaucracy,” he remarked during an interview; he also predicted that Putin would receive 90 percent support in the election. He later claimed his words were misconstrued.
But Peskov’s blunt forecast now appears to be prescient, especially after the disqualification of the only two significant anti-war opposition candidates, Ekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin, from the race.
Putin is now expected to face off against three candidates who have voluntarily abstained from criticizing him.
