Russians began voting Friday in a three-day parliamentary election, the country’s first since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party expected to maintain its dominant position in the State Duma.
Voting will continue through Sunday, with approximately 111 million people eligible to participate. Authorities have allowed electronic voting as part of efforts to increase participation, and Russia’s Central Election Commission reported turnout of about 30 per cent by late Friday, including online ballots.
The election is being held against the backdrop of the continuing war in Ukraine and a years-long crackdown on political dissent. The Kremlin has presented the vote as an opportunity to demonstrate national unity and support for Russian forces. In remarks ahead of voting, Putin urged Russians to participate, saying their choice would demonstrate that millions of people stood behind the country’s troops and remained united by shared values and national identity. Putin cast his ballot electronically on Friday.
United Russia is widely expected to retain its commanding position in the 450-seat State Duma. Several smaller parties commonly described as Russia’s “systemic opposition” are also expected to remain represented in parliament. These parties formally operate outside United Russia but have generally supported the government on major policy decisions.
Russian voters cast two ballots in the parliamentary election. Half of the Duma’s 450 seats are allocated through party-list voting, while the remaining seats are determined through individual contests in single-member constituencies.
The election is taking place with significantly limited anti-war political representation. The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered party that had openly criticized the war, was removed from the party-list ballot by Russia’s Supreme Court last month, although several dozen of its candidates remain in individual constituency races. Some anti-war politicians have also been imprisoned or have left Russia amid the broader crackdown on dissent.
The vote follows months of Ukrainian long-range drone attacks inside Russia, including strikes on oil refineries that contributed to fuel disruptions. Russian officials also reported election-related disruptions in several regions. Polling stations in Sochi were temporarily closed because of a drone threat, while authorities said a polling location in the Krasnodar region had to be moved after its windows were damaged by a drone.
Voting is also being conducted in Russian-held areas of Ukraine, including parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — four regions Moscow claimed to annex in 2022 but does not fully control. Balloting is additionally taking place in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in a move not recognized by Ukraine and most of the international community.
Russian election officials said 14 polling stations in Russian-held Luhansk were operating on backup power after Ukrainian drones damaged electrical infrastructure. Russian authorities separately alleged that Ukrainian attacks earlier in the week killed a polling station chief and injured another person in Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine had not immediately commented on that allegation.
Kyiv has rejected the voting conducted in Russian-held Ukrainian territories as illegal and has urged foreign governments and international organizations not to recognize the election there. Ukrainian authorities have also warned that involvement in organizing the vote in occupied areas could result in criminal liability under Ukrainian law.
The European Union similarly condemned voting in Russian-held Ukrainian territories. European Commission spokesperson Christian Wigand described the elections in those areas as a violation of international law and said the EU would not recognize either the voting or its results.
Wigand also criticized the broader conditions surrounding the Russian election, arguing that voters had been deprived of a genuine political choice. He noted that Moscow had not invited election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Inside Russia, voters interviewed by The Associated Press expressed differing priorities, ranging from hopes for political change and an end to the war to support for the government’s current direction. Economic inequality and concerns about living standards were also raised by voters.
Voting is scheduled to conclude Sunday, after which results will determine the composition of the State Duma for the next parliamentary term.
