Russia’s first wartime parliamentary election was set to conclude Sunday with little meaningful opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s agenda, making a Kremlin victory in the legislature virtually certain. The final voting day followed a night in which Ukrainian forces launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia, including hundreds aimed at Moscow.
Voting opened Friday, with Russian authorities promoting online ballots as a way to increase participation among the country’s 111 million eligible voters.
For the first time, the election also included residents of four Ukrainian regions that Russia claimed to annex after launching its full-scale invasion but does not fully control. Ballots were also being cast in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
Ukraine condemned the voting in Russian-held territories as illegitimate and called on foreign governments to reject the results. The European Union described the move Friday as a “blatant violation of international law.”
Kremlin expected to retain its grip
The Kremlin is using the election — the first parliamentary vote since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022 — to project public backing for the war and lend legitimacy to its policies. To limit political risk, officials have worked to suppress dissent and marginalize critics.
With state media dominating the campaign and genuine opposition largely excluded, United Russia is expected to preserve the Kremlin’s control over Russian politics. That outcome comes as the country faces growing economic pressure and more frequent Ukrainian drone strikes deep inside its territory.
Voters received two ballots. One determines half of the State Duma’s 450 seats through party-list voting, while the remaining seats are decided in single-member districts, where voters select individual candidates.
Initial results were expected within hours after polls closed in western Russia.
United Russia, the Kremlin’s dominant political party, was widely expected to maintain its commanding majority in the lower house. Smaller parties considered part of the “systemic opposition” — groups that generally support Putin’s position on major issues — were also expected to retain their seats.
Opposition pushed aside as observers cite alleged violations
The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered political organization to openly oppose the war, was removed from the party ballot by Russia’s Supreme Court last month. It fielded only a few dozen candidates in single-member races. Other anti-war politicians were jailed or driven into exile before the campaign began.
Yabloko and the Communist Party — which has challenged certain government policies while avoiding direct criticism of Putin — said many of their election observers were denied access to polling stations.
Russia did not invite monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Russian Foreign Ministry accused the group of applying “double standards” because of its criticism of Moscow. OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Pere Joan Pons said the refusal violated Russia’s obligations as a member state.
Yabloko said one of its observers lost consciousness while police arrested him at a St. Petersburg polling station Saturday. Officials had accused the observer of attempting to “disrupt the elections” before calling law enforcement.
Political parties reported several alleged irregularities, including the opening of sealed ballot boxes, polling-station doors left unsecured overnight and officials refusing to provide paper ballots. The accusations could not be independently confirmed.
At a polling station in the Russian-controlled section of the Donetsk region, voters placed their ballots into a box while an armed Russian soldier stood nearby observing the process.
Moscow voters report problems with electronic ballots
Ella Pamfilova, chairwoman of Russia’s Central Election Commission, said Sunday that cyberattacks had targeted the electronic voting system in Moscow.
SotaVision, an independent Russian news outlet, reported Sunday that voters across Moscow were encountering glitches in electronic voter-registration systems at polling stations. The outlet said on Telegram that people were being denied paper ballots and directed instead to electronic voting terminals.
Leonid Volkov, a close associate of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, suggested the supposed breakdown of the system used to issue paper ballots in Moscow may have been deliberate, aimed at pushing voters toward electronic voting.
“Demand a paper ballot!” he wrote on X on Sunday.
Having urged supporters to spoil party-list ballots, Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov cast a ballot in St. Petersburg on Sunday, covered in bright green writing declaring “For freedom,” “For peace,” and “Yabloko.”
Russian opposition abroad holds protests
Russia’s exiled opposition, including the widow of Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, called on anti-war Russians to cast their votes at noon on Sunday.
Thousands of Russians living in Armenia took part in the vote. Russian citizens lined up outside the Russian Embassy in the capital, Yerevan, on Sunday, to join the “Noon for a Peaceful Russia” anti-war demonstration. Some held anti-war and anti-Putin posters.
In Germany, voters cast their ballots at the Russian Embassy in Berlin. Andrei Pivovarov, a Russian dissident and former head of the Open Russia group, addressed a protest gathered outside the building.
Ukraine fires over 1,000 drones at Russia
The election’s last day came against a backdrop of a major wave of Ukrainian attacks. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces shot down a total of 1,110 Ukrainian drones across Russia, as well as over the annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.
Two people were killed and 20 wounded across the wider Moscow region, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said.
The election follows a summer of Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on oil refineries that triggered a widespread fuel crisis. Warehouses belonging to online retailers Wildberries and Ozon also were attacked. Those attacks have exacerbated economic problems and brought the war home for millions.
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