President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia's first wartime parliamentary election, which further strengthened the Kremlin's already-overwhelming legislative control, was a show of public support for his policies.
With over 97% of the vote counted from three days of balloting that ended Sunday, election officials said the main Kremlin party, United Russia, will get more than three-fourths of the seats in the lower house, the State Duma, a record
high. The tightly orchestrated vote excluded virtually any genuine opposition.
Voter turnout exceeded 59% of the 111 eligible million voters, the most for a parliamentary election in over a decade. Authorities had spread the voting over three days to boost attendance at the polls and included illegally annexed parts of Ukraine. Online voting also took place in some regions.
“Such a record number of people who come to cast ballots shows that the people of Russia support our efforts aimed at strengthening the country,” Putin said in televised remarks at a meeting with top government members, his first public remarks on the outcome.
The election took place against the backdrop of incessant Ukrainian drone attacks. On Sunday, Russia's Defense Ministry reported it downed 1,110 drones overnight.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 450 drones were downed while flying toward the city in what he described as “the largest ever” attack on the capital in a failed attempt to disrupt the vote. The attack, which damaged an oil refinery and a residential building, also killed three people and injured 38 in the wider Moscow region, officials said.
“They tried to hamper our efforts, to derail the election, as evidenced by the enemy’s continuous efforts to breach air defenses around Moscow and in other regions,” Putin said. “But lines at polling stations have shown that Russia can’t be intimidated.”
The parliamentary election was the first since Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the first to include residents of four regions of that country that were seized and illegally annexed by Moscow later that year. At a polling station in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region, voters dropped their ballots in a box under the gaze of an armed Russian soldier.
Voting also was held in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Kyiv denounced the voting in those regions as illegal.
Putin also addressed Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
“Comrades, I want you to know that it was the vote for you. People trust you, they believe in our victory, believe in your courage, heroism and your devotion to the Motherland,” he said.
“I have no doubt that all the goals we set for the special military operation will be fulfilled,” Putin said, using the Kremlin term for the war in Ukraine.
A massive state media campaign and tight control over the election allowed the Kremlin to strengthen its political dominance despite economic troubles and long-range Ukrainian drone attacks.
The preliminary results indicated that United Russia would get between 347 and 355 out of 450 Duma seats. It received just under 58% of the vote for the 225 seats apportioned by parties and also won 208 single-seat races that fill the other half of the chamber.
Several smaller parties representing the “systemic opposition” that vote in sync with the Kremlin on all key issues are set to fill most of the remaining seats. Just a handful will go to candidates who ran without a party affiliation.
The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered political entity that dared to publicly criticize the war, was removed from the ballot last month by Russia’s Supreme Court, and only had a few dozen candidates in the single-seat races. Preliminary results indicated that no Yabloko candidates won a seat.
