Overview
- Voting opens Friday in a three-day parliamentary election that will fill all 450 State Duma seats and is widely seen as delivering another dominant result for Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.
- The only openly anti-war party cleared earlier, Yabloko, was removed from the party-list ballot by the Supreme Court and key members have been jailed or barred from running, narrowing real political choice.
- For the first time residents of Russian-controlled parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are voting in the Duma race, a move Kyiv and many Western states reject as illegal.
- Expanded electronic voting and the multi-day window, combined with workplace pressure and tight candidate vetting, create technical and administrative avenues observers say can be used to adjust counts and hide irregularities.
- Summer drone strikes on refineries and logistics hubs have worsened fuel shortages and economic strain, raising public unease that makes turnout and vote margins the Kremlin’s key signals of popular support and the main focus for international criticism.