Putin's United Russia Wins Parliamentary Election — SkimNews
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- United Russia led with 57.86% of the vote with 90.43% of ballots counted per the Central Election Commission, putting Putin's party on track to retain its majority in the 450-seat State Duma after 2021's 326-seat haul
- Voter turnout stood just below 57%, with more than 3.6 million Russians voting online and residents of four annexed Ukrainian regions (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhia) plus Crimea also participating — a vote the UN and most of the world does not recognize as legitimate
- Yabloko's Nikolai Rybakov publicly spoiled his ballot, writing his party's name and the slogan "For peace," after most antiwar candidates were barred from running and two senior Yabloko figures received long jail terms for comments about the Russia-Ukraine war
- Systemic opposition parties trailed but remained on course for seats: CPRF at 13.84%, LDPR at 8.9%, New People at 7.94%, and A Just Russia at 4.95% — all of which, the article notes, generally vote with United Russia in parliament
- Berlin-based NEST think tank said votes for CPRF and New People may amount to a "silent protest" against Putin, as "accumulated anxiety and frustration" over the war's economic consequences channels into parties the Kremlin tolerates on the ballot
- Ukraine denounced the election as illegal and launched what TASS called the biggest drone attack since February 2022 during voting, killing five people including an election official in Russian-held Kherson and damaging a Moscow oil refinery facility
- A separate Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three in Russia's Bryansk region on Monday morning, per acting Governor Yegor Kovalchuk
Why it matters: The headline result — Putin's supermajority — was preordained, but the 57% turnout and NEST's reading that CPRF and New People gains reflect 'accumulated anxiety' over war costs suggest the Kremlin's grip, while unchallenged, is being tested by economic strain felt inside Russia. Ukraine's parallel drone campaign during voting — the largest since the war began — shows Kyiv is now treating Russian electoral legitimacy itself as a battlefield.
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