Russians vote as Ukraine war drags on for fifth year

Russians yesterday began voting in a tightly controlled three-day election that is set to tighten Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 26-year grip on power, in the country’s fifth year of war with Ukraine.

It is Russia’s first parliamentary election since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022. Only parties that support Putin and the Kremlin’s military campaign have been registered to run. Moscow has also organized voting in occupied Ukraine.

The EU slammed the elections, saying “repression” had been used to eradicate opponents, while a Council of Europe body denounced the vote as “fake.”

Voters leave voting booths during the parliamentary election in St Petersburg, Russia, yesterday.

Photo: AP

While few Russians doubt Putin’s United Russia party would cruise to victory again, the vote offers a gauge of public support for the war. Putin has ruled Russia since 1999 and his party has dominated politics since the early 2000s. Moscow has banned criticism of the Ukraine campaign, and elections under Putin rarely produce surprises. Putin had called on Russians to vote to show they back Moscow’s troops and to deliver an “answer to those who want to weaken Russia.”

The Kremlin published footage of the 73-year-old president voting online — rare footage of the longtime leader. On Moscow’s streets, several voters said they wanted the war in Ukraine to end — but on Russia’s terms, backing Putin’s goals.

Rail worker Sergei Korenets said he would back United Russia, voting for “stability” — echoing Putin’s main slogan.

Asked whether four-and-a-half years of war amounts to “stability,” Korenets said: “Of course, I want all this [the war] to end as quickly as possible.”

Despite sweeping Western sanctions, Russia’s economy has not collapsed and life in the capital remains relatively normal even as Moscow bombards Ukrainian cities daily.

United Russia faces only parties that broadly back Putin’s policies and the war: the Communist Party, the nationalist LDPR, A Just Russia and New People.

Yabloko, which called for an end to the fighting, was barred from running shortly before the vote. One of its main figures, Lev Shlosberg, was imprisoned for criticizing the war.

Russia has since 2022 introduced Soviet-style censorship and jailed war critics.

“I am fully for the special military operation,” Lyubov said.

“NATO cannot be at our borders,” she added, repeating one of Putin’s arguments for launching the war.

However, she criticized some social policies, upset by Putin raising the pension age several years ago, saying she wanted a “return to the Soviet economic system.”

Older voters are among Putin’s strongest supporters, although many complain about living standards.

Putin’s political opponents have mostly been driven into exile ,and his main opponent, Alexei Navalny, died in an arctic prison in 2024.

Russia’s exiled opposition has urged anti-Kremlin Russians not to boycott the elections, but instead vote “against Putin’s party.”

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, called on anti-war Russians to cast their ballots at noon tomorrow.

Yabloko disagrees, saying that it was better not to vote.

“You are suggesting that we once again go, like sheep, dancing to their tune, and vote for those who have caused the deaths of people in Russia and Ukraine?” party chairman Nikolay Rybakov said.