Not just a stamp. Aleksey Uvarov (RIDL) says Putin’s Duma is no longer a public fight among regions and ministries, but after February 2022 loyalty is the test and real bargains—budgets, regulation, security turf, jobs—happen before the floor vote. Abstentions matter more than “no.”

Still does work. He lists leftover jobs: drafting, administration, representation, personnel, and quiet lobbying for governors and sectors. Calling it useless, he argues, mistakes vote totals for the whole machine.

A shell that can refill. Ceremonial bodies can matter again if the outside shock hits—he cites the RSFSR Supreme Soviet after the 1990 competitive elections. In a succession crisis, ready rules and offices could take on politics again; do not write them off as dead.

Under Putin, the Duma has been transformed from a place where regional and bureaucratic interests were fought out in public to a tightly controlled branch of the power vertical; and as a result, many are inclined to write it off as an irrelevancy, according to Aleksey........

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