Vladimir Putin is forcing the «militarization» of Russia with the help of veteran candidates in the elections

On Sunday, the Russian leader attended an Orthodox Easter service in Moscow. Photo: Sergey Karpukhin/Shutterstock

Vladimir Putin will be promoting Ukrainian war veterans as candidates for his United Russia party in this year's regional elections, local media report, intensifying Russia's «militarization.»

On meeting this week of the Young Guard, United Russia's youth wing, Alexander Sidyakin, the party's deputy general secretary, said he had been ordered to give war veterans «full support.»

“We will help them with campaigning and information. Help them shoot videos, print materials, promote them somewhere on social networks,” he said.

Primaries will be held at the end of this month before voting in September, and elections are scheduled in most regions of Russia due to one of the most important days in the country's political cycle.

Western analysts say Putin wants to use the election to keep the war at the center of Russian life.

The American Institute for the Study of War described the plan to promote war veterans as the «militarization» of the United Russia party. than usual, even for a wartime country,” it says.

While Western analysts say the Kremlin will manipulate votes to get the results it wants, the election is still seen as a chance for ordinary Russians to voice their dissent or approve of the war, as United Russia dominates almost all of the country's regional and city assemblies.

Even the Kremlin's own polls have shown that Putin's popularity has waned as the war has continued, especially in September, when he ordered the first mobilization in Russia since World War II.

Since then, the Kremlin's propaganda machine has been working tirelessly to shift the blame to both the West and Ukraine.

Elections must also take place in the occupied territories Ukraine, which were annexed by Putin last September.