President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party retained its commanding majority in the country's parliament after a three-day election held under tight political controls, with preliminary results putting the ruling party on course for its largest-ever number of seats in the State Duma.
With more than 95% of polling stations reporting, United Russia had won 57.83% of the party-list vote, up from 49.8% in the previous parliamentary election in 2021, Russia's Central Election Commission said. The preliminary results would give the party 355 of the Duma's 450 seats, Reuters noted.
Half of the Duma's lawmakers are elected through party lists, while the other 225 seats are decided in individual constituencies. United Russia candidates were leading in 208 of those constituency races.
Other parties that won seats in the Duma included the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and New People. Those parties have supported the Kremlin on major issues, including legislation connected to the war in Ukraine.
The election was Russia's first parliamentary vote since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Putin had presented the election as a measure of public backing for his government and its conduct of the war, while United Russia campaigned heavily on military and patriotic themes.
The vote also took place in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and in Russian-held parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Moscow claimed the four regions as Russian territory after holding referendums there in 2022 that Ukraine and Western governments rejected.
Kyiv denounced the parliamentary voting in occupied Ukrainian territory as illegal and urged other countries not to recognize the results from those regions. The European Commission described the voting there as a violation of international law.
Russia's political opposition had been sharply restricted before voting began. Yabloko, the country's only registered party to publicly oppose the war, was removed from the nationwide party-list ballot by Russia's Supreme Court in August, although some of its candidates were allowed to compete in individual constituencies.
Yabloko nevertheless appeared to secure a small regional foothold after crossing the 5% threshold needed to enter the Novgorod regional parliament, Reuters reported. It did not win representation in the national parliament.
A number of other politicians who opposed the war have been jailed, disqualified from running or have left Russia since the invasion. Yabloko and the Communist Party also said some of their election observers were prevented from entering polling stations, according to The Associated Press report.
Russia did not invite election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Pere Joan Pons said the decision violated Russia's commitments as a participating state, while Russia's Foreign Ministry has accused the organization of applying double standards.
Central Election Commission chair Ella Pamfilova said turnout exceeded 59%, the highest level recorded in a Russian parliamentary election in more than a decade. Final results are expected to be formally announced Friday.
The three days of voting coincided with some of the most extensive Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory since the war began.
Hundreds of drones targeted Moscow and its surrounding region on the final day of voting, hitting the Moscow Oil Refinery and other sites. Three people were killed in the wider Moscow region and dozens were injured, Russian officials said. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described it as the largest drone attack on the capital since the start of the war.
The strike followed months of Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, particularly oil refineries. Those attacks have damaged refining capacity and contributed to fuel shortages and higher prices in parts of Russia.
