Life for the Russian opposition has never been easy, but Sunday’s election was an unmitigated disaster. Credible claims of fraud aside, Vladimir Putin can confidently claim his vision of an exceptionalist, reactionary state was endorsed by the majority of the voting public.

And that poses an existential question to those left fighting against his rule.

These were not real elections, of course. With state media egging on the main candidate and insulting the rest of the hand-picked field, only Mr Putin stood a chance. But according to official figures, less than 5 per cent of votes went to the liberal “opposition” candidates – the celebrity Ksenia Sobchak, the veteran dissenter Grigory Yavlinsky and the “representative from business” Boris Titov.

Alexei Navalny, the most credible challenger who was forced to sit the election out, called for a boycott. The final result – with exaggerated figures for the incumbent – suggested that his strategy, too, had backfired.

On the night of the election, the sense of disarray was compounded with an angry exchange between Mr Navalny and Ms Sobchak live on air. He rejected her offer to join forces and accused her of being paid to discredit the opposition. “You have shown yourself to be the champion of hypocrisy,” he said.

A day later, Mr Navalny addressed criticism of his stance by posting a video of his rival where she seems to accept the defeat of Russia’s liberal agenda.

“To the commentators who suggested I was harsh with Ksenia, watch this, and go to hell,” he wrote.

In contrast, loyal Kremlin cheerleaders were ecstatic.

“We don’t want to live like [the West] anymore,” declared Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the state-funded RT network. “Before [Putin] was our president, now he is our national leader.”

Mr Putin’s emboldened administration wasted little time getting back to work.

On Tuesday, state regulators demanded Telegram, an instant messaging service, hand over backdoor keys to users’ secret messages within 15 days. The social network issued a defiant response, but could now be blocked. A little later, state prosecutors requested a nine-year prison colony sentence for Yuri Dmitriev, an anti-Gulag activist controversially accused of child pornography offences. There had been hope the charges would be thrown out. And then Oleg Navalny, Alexei’s brother, controversially imprisoned in 2015, was moved to a harsh solitary detention cell. His crime? Sitting at a table after curfew.

Mr Navalny’s supporters insist they have not become disillusioned by the result. Close ally Vladimir Ashurkov, now exiled in London, said it was “better to concentrate on the positive aspects of the campaign”.

“We knew the opposition was not strong enough to take an autocratic regime head on, and there was a lot of debate in our group whether we would even get this far,” he told The Independent. “But when I first met Navalny in 2010, he was working in a tiny office with three lawyers. Now we have a media empire, a national network of offices, volunteers, and recognition in Russia and abroad.”

Mr Navalny’s team is now focussed on “building agility and strength”, in anticipation of a future opportunity, Mr Ashurkov said. “However stable it looks, the current system is growing increasingly fragile, and it faces many challenges. At some point there will be a crisis that will inevitably lead to political liberalisation. We are preparing for this moment.”

Voices nearer the government were dismissive of such a prospect.

“Navalny didn’t realise how weak he was,” said Andrei Kolyagin, a spin doctor and former Kremlin adviser. “He thought he was in some pre-revolutionary moment, but he didn’t listen to advice and he didn’t do the sociology – that would have told him less than 3 per cent of the population supported his boycott.”

The success Mr Navalny has enjoyed among critical voters will probably be seen as historical, said Mr Kolyagin. With personalities like Ms Sobchak and the Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin now in the frame, there is now any number of “opposition figures” to choose from. “Provided the state continues to engage with this opposition, and develop it, Navalny will find it difficult to break through on his own,” said the former Kremlin adviser.

Mr Ashurkov said it was unlikely the Navalny camp would reconsider its decision not to join forces with Ms Sobchak.

Russia election 2018: in pictures Show all 27 1 /27 Russia election 2018: in pictures Russia election 2018: in pictures People attend a rally in Manezhnaya Square near the Kremlin during the ongoing presidential elections. EPA Russia election 2018: in pictures The members of the local election commission open a ballot box for counting at a polling station during the presidential elections in St. Petersburg. EPA Russia election 2018: in pictures Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and Presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak attend a debate at the "Navalny Live" YouTube show in Moscow. Reuters Russia election 2018: in pictures Members of a local election commission count votes during Russia's presidential election in the small town of Krasnyi. AFP/Getty Russia election 2018: in pictures President Vladimir Putin walks out of a voting booth at a polling station during Russia's presidential election in Moscow. AFP/Getty Russia election 2018: in pictures An elderly woman casts her ballot at her house during Russia's presidential election in the village of Khrapovo. AFP/Getty Russia election 2018: in pictures Presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak votes inside a polling booth in Moscow. AP Russia election 2018: in pictures Russian Communist Party presidential candidate Pavel Grudinin votes at a polling station in the Sovkhoz Imeni Lenina, outside Moscow. AFP/Getty Russia election 2018: in pictures A woman with her dog lines up with Russian military personnel to vote in the presidential election in Moscow. AP Russia election 2018: in pictures A man casts his ballot at a polling station during Russia's presidential election in the small town of Krasnyi. AFP/Getty Russia election 2018: in pictures Presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky casts a ballot at a polling station in Moscow. Reuters Russia election 2018: in pictures An elderly woman fills her ballot at her house as a member of a mobile Russian election committee visits residents of the village of Sovyaki. EPA Russia election 2018: in pictures A child plays at a polling station during presidential elections in St.Petersburg. AP Russia election 2018: in pictures A man casts his ballot at a polling station inside Kazansky railway terminal. AFP/Getty Russia election 2018: in pictures Vladimir Putin casts his ballot. Reuters Russia election 2018: in pictures A man casts a ballot, during the presidential election, inside the Russian Embassy in London. Reuters Russia election 2018: in pictures People leave a polling station during the presidential election in Moscow. Reuters Russia election 2018: in pictures Presidential candidate Sergei Baburin, leader of the nationalist People's Union party, votes at a polling station in Moscow. AFP/Getty Russia election 2018: in pictures Voters look at a poster displaying presidential candidates at a polling station in the ZIL cultural centre in Moscow. AFP/Getty Images Russia election 2018: in pictures An Orthodox Jewish Russian citizen casts his ballot at a polling station for the Russian presidential elections in the Sergei Building at the Russian compound in Jerusalem. EPA Russia election 2018: in pictures Players of the Russian national soccer team, including Vladimir Gabulov and Yuri Zhirkov, visit a polling station during the presidential election at the Novogorsk training centre outside Moscow. Reuters Russia election 2018: in pictures President Vladimir Putin shakes the hand of a polling station staff member during voting. AFP/Getty Images Russia election 2018: in pictures A man votes at a polling station in Moscow. Rex Russia election 2018: in pictures Presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak casts her ballot by scanning it in at a polling station in Moscow. EPA Russia election 2018: in pictures Policemen guarding the General Consulate of Russia in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv watch an Ukrainian activist touching the nose of a dummy embodying Russia's president in a coffin. AFP/Getty Russia election 2018: in pictures A woman with a dog reads her ballot at a polling station in Moscow. AFP/Getty Russia election 2018: in pictures A man walks out of a voting booth at a polling station in the village of Novye Bateki. AFP/Getty

“Never say never, but my view is that you need partners who are close to you in values or are strong, who bring something to the table,” he said. “Ksenia currently fails on both counts.”

Ms Sobchak’s 4 per cent result in Moscow showed that his man remained the stronger candidate, Mr Ashurkov added. Mr Navalny won 27 per cent in mayoral elections in 2013, nearly forcing a run-off with the Kremlin’s choice, Sergei Sobyanin.

The inability of the Russian opposition to unite under pressure is, of course, not a new story. In 1995, free market liberals Yegor Gaidar and Grigory Yavlinsky famously “agreed” to unite forces after a night of negotiations and a bottle of brandy – only for Mr Yavlinsky to deny it a few hours later. This became a pattern in Mr Yavlinsky’s later political career.

“It’s much easier to unite when you are winning,” said the independent political expert Maria Lipman. “When a cause is lost from the start, all the differences – political and personal – come to the fore.”

The odds certainly remain stacked against Mr Navalny. With only a fraction of the state’s repressive apparatus turned on, his movement remains at the mercy of the those in the Kremlin. The authorities made it through election day without reverting to arrests, but that is no guarantee they will not turn up the pressure in the future.

Mr Ashurkov said he had “no illusions” about his own personal security, even while based in London. “Any person who opposes a corrupt and repressive regime has reason to worry. None of us are in any doubt that the Russian security services are capable of another Skripal-like operation.” The Kremlin has denied being behind the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

Given the hostile “tiger and mouse” conditions they face, Mr Navalny and his team have already achieved a lot, says Ms Lipman.

“No one else has managed to build a network of young supporters who have stayed loyal despite the risk of violence, arrest and worse,” she said.