Putin’s United Russia remains in power. What should concern the West is how it got there - analysis

Unsurprisingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won a vast majority of seats in the State Duma elections. 

Preliminary results released on Monday indicated that United Russia won 355 of 450 seats in the state’s lower house of the legislature, or approximately 57.8% of the vote, Russia’s Central Election Commission announced. 

Notably, at least 86 veterans of the war in Ukraine are expected to take seats in the Duma, the Moscow Times reported. 

This does not include the hundreds of regional officials who were elected in the world’s largest landmass. The final results will be released no later than October 5, the CEC said.

United Russia’s victory was an unfortunate but obvious conclusion. It is concerning that this election maintains Putin’s hold on power and could lay the groundwork to further escalate the war in Ukraine, especially as many fear another round of draft orders. However, it is vital to understand why this election turned out this way in the first place.

Some analysts and exiled journalists called this election Russia’s most uncompetitive election in its modern history, not only because of the way politicians campaigned, but also because of how easily the Kremlin manipulated the results 

Firstly, the way that Russia conducts its elections already makes any results easier to distort.

Russia offered electronic voting in 33 of its 89 federally recognized regions. The election was also spread over three days. Both of these factors make it much easier to tamper with results in an already rigged election.

Secondly, Putin manipulated the fact that Russians even have elections in the first place as proof that his citizens support his increasingly authoritarian actions.

In several appearances before the elections, he pointed to the fact that Russia is having elections despite the conflict in Ukraine as proof of three different things. His primary unspoken claim is that Russia is still democratic, or at least a “managed” democracy. His second claim is that Russians are supportive of the “special military operation” in Ukraine (Putin’s government does not call the war a war in an effort to delegitimize Kyiv and control the domestic narrative within Russia). Finally, he uses the fact that Ukraine has not had an election since it declared martial law over four years ago as proof that Zelensky runs a fascist regime.

“We have to stand for election, not be afraid to run for office,” Putin said in June. “And I would advise everyone to do the same. Especially in Ukraine.”

This is Russia’s first parliamentary election since it began the war in Ukraine. Over the course of election season, Putin  he also framed elections as a way to show support for the war.
“Your choice and resolve will show once again that millions of people stand behind our fighters,” Putin said last week. “Participating in the elections is our shared contribution to Russia’s victory.”

United Russia’s public approval rating was at a notable low of 33% before Friday

However, United Russia’s public approval rating was at a notable low of 33% before ballots were cast on Friday, according to Russia’s Public Opinion Foundation, which is regarded as Kremlin-friendly.

Still, Kremlin-friendly paper Kommersant claimed that this year had the highest voter turnout since the early 2000s, at about 60%. 

This is part of the reason why, if the claims are true, it is so interesting that there was also notably little campaigning in this year’s State Duma race.

In more than one instance, Russian state TV channels were set to moderate a debate between candidates, none of whom showed up.

"Good evening, and welcome to tonight's campaign speeches by candidates for Duma Electoral District 158," one Russia state TV News anchor said in one clip circulating online. The camera then cuts to six empty podiums.

"The candidates haven't turned up. So, it's goodbye from me."

It’s worth noting that Putin has never participated in a televised electoral debate during his near 20 years in office. It’s fair to assume that other members of his party have since followed suit.

However, the fact that this happened more than once shows that Russian politicians know that there is little competition. United Russia will take most of the seats in the federal government as well as state and local elections, and a  few opposition candidates will make the cut to maintain a veneer of democracy.

Only four other parties cleared the electoral threshold

In the 2026 election, only four other parties cleared the electoral threshold: the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, New People, and A Just Russia.

Put together, they have 89 seats.

It can be hard to distinguish between these parties. Some obviously tilt more to the right or left, but in terms of the “special military operation,” they all vote the same way, and therefore function as systemic opposition.

The Kremlin, under Putin’s tenure, has been eliminating dissenting parties from the ballot. Russians now have only 17 registered political parties that can run in elections, down from around 100 in the 1980s.

A prime example of this is Yabloko, a left-leaning party that explicitly called for a ceasefire in Ukraine, was eliminated from the ballot this summer.

Some individual candidates have run, but 29 of at least 36 opposition candidates barred from the elections were Yabloko candidates, according to reporting by the Moscow Times and the independent Russian-language outlet Vyorstka. 

Notably, some Yabloko candidates were fined for interacting with materials involving slain Russian activist Alexei Navalny. While they have denied the charges, they were still disqualified, fined thousands of rubles, and in some cases were declared “foreign agents”, the Kremlin’s label to brand someone a traitor with foreign influence.

This election in Russia has not changed anything. Because there is no way to see the real breakdown of the data, there’s no way to know how Russians actually feel about their government. That, in and of itself, is the biggest indicator of how rotted Russia’s political system is.

So United Russia will take another supermajority in the State Duma, the so-called opposition will continue to play by the Kremlin’s rules, and ordinary Russians will continue to live under a “managed” democracy.

No one ever thought the Kremlin would lose in this election. But it has shamefully signaled to its citizens and to the world that it’s not going anywhere.