United Russia retains Duma majority after vote marked
Vladimir Putin's United Russia party secured a large parliamentary majority in elections held under Ukrainian drone strikes and cyberattacks, with no
Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party has won a large majority in Russia's parliamentary elections, according to state media results published early Monday. The vote for the 450-seat State Duma was conducted against a backdrop of Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow and widespread cyberattacks targeting electoral infrastructure.
No party opposed to the war in Ukraine was allowed to contest the election. Russia's Supreme Court removed the liberal, anti-war Yabloko party from the federal ballot weeks before the vote, although some of its candidates remained in single-mandate constituencies. Voting also took place in Ukrainian territories occupied and annexed by Russia.
Election results and projections
With just over 71 percent of ballots counted, Russian news agencies reported United Russia took 57.5 percent of the vote. The Communist Party and the nationalist LDPR trailed behind. State agency TASS projects the ruling party will retain its two-thirds supermajority in the Duma, granting it the power to amend the constitution.
| Party | Share of Vote |
|---|---|
| United Russia | 57.5% |
| Communist Party | 14% |
| LDPR | 8.7% |
An exit poll by a state-run pollster showed United Russia on course to win 49.4 percent, close to its result in the previous election. The first official results and turnout figures were expected Monday morning.
Drone attacks on voting day
Ukraine fired waves of drones at Moscow and its surrounding region on the final day of voting Sunday, killing two people and setting an oil refinery ablaze. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called it the largest attack on the capital since the war began, involving around 1,600 drones with 450 aimed directly at Moscow.
Images showed a gaping hole in a multi-storey apartment building on the capital's outskirts and black smoke billowing from a refinery. At least two people were killed-a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man-in two separate locations, according to Moscow regional Governor Andrey Vorobyov. A drone crash into a 21-storey building triggered a fire that led to 400 people being evacuated.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the attacks. Russia's defence ministry vowed to intensify strikes on Kyiv in response, accusing Ukraine of attempting to "disrupt the democratic will of Russian citizens."
Cyberattacks and opposition
As voting entered its final day, Russia's electoral chief reported a wave of cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure. Ella Pamfilova, chair of the Central Election Commission, said over 1,000 waves of DDoS attacks had been recorded against infrastructure involved in the electoral process. She said the attacks appeared to be carried out by "highly professional, well-coordinated groups using artificial intelligence tools." Pamfilova also warned that saboteurs had severed communication lines in Russia's far east.
Domestic opposition to the vote was muted. The Kremlin's chief political opponents are in exile, and Putin's main rival, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison in 2024. Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, called for anti-war Russians to cast ballots collectively at noon on Sunday, a tactic that drew crowds in the 2024 presidential election. In Berlin and London, AFP reporters saw dozens of opposition supporters gathered outside Russian embassy buildings in protest.
President Putin had urged Russians to participate, framing the vote as a show of support for Moscow's troops and an answer to those who want to weaken Russia.
