Russian voters are handed ballot papers with an X already marked in favour of Putin's party as elections are hit by mass fraud claims

Russian voters are being handed ballot papers with an 'X' already marked in favour of Vladimir Putin's party. 

The country began three days of voting on Friday in its first wartime parliamentary election, which features virtually no opposition and is all but certain to secure the Kremlin's political dominance in what critics have described as a 'sham' election. 

Voters in the city of Syktyvkar were mistakenly handed ballots already pre-marked with a cross in favour of Putin's United Russia party, Communist Party candidate Oleg Mikhailov claimed. 

Elsewhere, footage emerged of a man in Voronezh, southwestern Russia, dropping multiple voting slips into a ballot box. 

A similar incident was documented in St Petersburg, where a polling-station staff member was filmed stuffing around 100 voting papers into a box. 

Multiple ballot boxes were found to have problems with their seals, according to reports.

Meanwhile, workers from state companies and defence plants were allegedly ordered to send photos of their completed voting slips to bosses after being ordered to vote for United Russia.

In the Samara region, unidentified individuals were seen leaving with ballots in hand, while on the island of Sakhalin, mobile polling stations operated without observers after they were blocked from following the operation.

Image shows a pre-marked ballot paper with a cross in favour of Putin's United Russia party

Vladimir Putin speaks during an awards ceremony for the workers of Russia's defense industry at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin in Moscow, Friday, September 18, 2026, as Russia kicks off its elections 

A man casts his ballot during voting at a polling station in Moscow, Russia, 18 September 2026

In the occupied Luhansk region, voters were surprised to be told they had already voted early — when people in multiple villages were not told about pre-poll ballot casting.

One voter said: 'I'm almost embarrassed to ask, but who did we vote for?'

Another said: 'The [block of flats] where I'm registered has been destroyed [in the war]. I have no idea who voted or when. Disgraceful.'

A candidate for Russia's liberal Yabloko party said: 'It's like winning the lottery eight times in a row.'

The group, which is the only registered political entity that dared to criticise the war, was removed from the ballot last month by Russia's Supreme Court.

This has prevented voters from being able to cast a ballot for a candidate opposing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. 

Additionally, some anti-war politicians have been imprisoned or forced to flee abroad ahead of the campaign.

The election follows a summer of Ukraine's long-range drone strikes on oil refineries that triggered a widespread fuel crisis. Warehouses belonging to online retailers Wildberries and Ozon were also attacked. 

People vote in Russia's parliamentary election at a polling station in St. Petersburg, Russia, on September 18, 2026

Russian President Vladimir Putin votes online in the parliamentary election, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026

The damage has exacerbated problems for the Russian economy and brought the war home for millions.

In Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, polling stations were briefly closed because of a threat of a drone attack, local officials said. 

One polling station in the Krasnodar region had to be set up in a different venue after a drone shattered windows there, said Central Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova.

For the first time, the parliamentary election includes residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began, but still doesn't fully control. 

Voting is also taking place in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Voters dropped their ballots in a box at one polling station in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine as an armed Russian soldier stood nearby and watched.

Speaking at a meeting with officials, Putin said that Ukraine was trying to hamper the vote, mentioning a Ukrainian strike that killed the head of a polling station in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Authorities in Kyiv denounced the voting in the Russian-held areas as illegal and urged foreign governments and international organisations not to recognise the election, warning Ukrainians that taking part in organising the balloting could carry criminal liability.

The elections come as Russia continues to fight Ukraine. Pictured: Rescuers at the site of an apartment building damaged by a Russian glide bomb, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a location given as Sumy, Ukraine in this still image from video released September 19, 2026

Firefighters are dispatched to the scene after two consecutive attacks hit the central part of Odesa, Ukraine, on September 18, 2026

European Commission spokesperson Christian Wigand also called the voting in Russian-held regions 'illegal' and said the European Union condemns it.

'These so-called elections represent yet another blatant violation of international law. The European Union does not, and will never recognise either the holding of these so-called elections, sham elections, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine or their results,' he said.

Wigand said the way the elections are held 'underscores the continued and deepening erosion of democracy in Russia,' and that the Kremlin 'deprives voters in Russia of a genuine choice about the future of their country.'

He also noted that Russia decided not to invite observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, disregarding its commitments. 

He vowed the EU will continue to support Russian civil society organisations, human rights groups and independent media.