Russia’s ruling pro-Putin party keeps control of parliament after a carefully orchestrated vote — SkimNews
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- United Russia won just under 58% of the party-list vote with over 95% of polling stations counted, and Central Election Commission chair Ella Pamfilova said preliminary figures pointed to a record 355 of 450 seats in the State Duma.
- Russia's Supreme Court removed the liberal Yabloko party — the only registered entity that publicly criticized the war — from the ballot last month, while anti-war politicians were imprisoned or forced to flee abroad ahead of the campaign.
- This was Russia's first parliamentary election since Putin's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and voting was extended to residents of four illegally annexed Ukrainian regions plus Crimea, a move Kyiv denounced as illegal.
- Turnout hit just over 59%, the highest in a Russian parliamentary election in over a decade, bolstered by electronic voting available in many regions that critics argued made it easier for the government to control the outcome.
- United Russia candidates were leading in 208 of 225 single-ballot constituency races, and several other parties that reliably back Kremlin initiatives also won seats alongside a handful of independent candidates.
- Russia declined to invite OSCE observers, accusing the body of "double standards" — a decision OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Pere Joan Pons called a breach of Russia's commitments as a member state.
- At one polling station in the Russian-held part of Donetsk, voters dropped ballots into a box as an armed Russian soldier stood nearby and watched.
Why it matters: With Yabloko barred and anti-war voices jailed or exiled, Putin now commands a record 355-seat supermajority in the Duma with zero legislative opposition to the war effort. The combination of a 59% turnout — a decade high — and voting in occupied Ukrainian territory gives the Kremlin a usable mandate narrative to justify the invasion as it absorbs rising economic costs and deepening Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian soil.
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