Pro-Putin party wins decisive majority

‘SHAM’: The EU’s top diplomat dismissed the elections as a ‘veneer of democracy’ and vowed to propose sanctions on those who helped hold them in Ukrainian territories

• Reuters and AFP, MOSCOW and BRUSSELS

• • Add TT as Preferred Source

  • 

  • 

  • 

The ruling United Russia party retained its decisive majority in the national parliament, near-complete election results showed yesterday, while the anti-war Yabloko party appeared to have won a tiny foothold in one regional parliament.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had cast the three-day election to the State Duma — the first since Moscow launched its full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022— as a test of support for the war. Elections for some regional parliaments and governors were held at the same time.

In a tightly controlled political system, which critics say does not tolerate genuine dissent, under which many of Yabloko’s candidates were barred, few surprises were expected.

People stand next to video screens sowing preliminary voting results for Russian parliamentary elections at Russia’s Central Election Committee headquarters, in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026.

Photo: AP

However, political analysts said it was important to the authorities that the process itself was seen to be relatively smooth. Officials from Putin down had cast the vote as a way of showing enemies that Russia was united.

With more than 95 percent of the vote counted, Russian Central Electoral Commission Chair Ella Pamfilova Chair said United Russia had won a resounding victory with 57.83 percent, up from the 49.8 percent that it won in the last parliamentary election in 2021.

United Russia was set to control 355 seats or nearly 80 percent of the 450-seat Duma, a total that includes results in individual constituencies. That would maintain its constitutional majority — enabling it to pass laws and initiate amendments to the constitution without the support of other parties.

Pamfilova said three other parties had made it into parliament —the Communists with 13.81 percent, the ultranationalist LDPR with 8.98 percent and the New People party with 7.96 percent.

Just Russia was just under the 5 percent threshold needed to enter parliament, but had “a big chance” of making it, she said.

All of those parties have voted in the same way as United Russia on major issues in the past few years.

In Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally, was re-elected to a fifth term as leader with an official tally of near 100 percent.

Pamfilova said turnout among Russia’s 111 million voters — which she put at 59.3 percent — was a record for such an election, which continued despite a heavy Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow on Sunday, the last day of voting.

She also called the vote “clean” in the face of allegations from opposition activists in exile of widespread rigging.

Yabloko, the only registered anti-war party in Russia, failed to win any seats at a national level.

However, in Novgorod, about 480km northwest of Moscow, with nearly 97 percent of votes counted, it appeared to have cleared the 5 percent barrier by 1 percentage point to enter the regional parliament.

“More than 12,000 Novogorod residents supported Yabloko,” the party, which supports a ceasefire in Ukraine, said in a statement.

“Peace, freedom and a life free from fear are values that have struck a chord in people’s hearts and souls,” it said.

Meanwhile, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas dismissed Russia’s parliamentary elections as a “veneer” of democracy, and said she was proposing sanctions on those who helped hold them in occupied Ukraine.

“The so-called Duma elections marked another major setback for Russian democracy. Their outcome was never in doubt,” Kallas wrote on X.

“The Kremlin silenced dissent, barred the only registered party that opposed its war in Ukraine, and shut out international election monitors. The veneer of democracy is all that remains in Russia,” she said.

Kallas said she had “proposed measures against those facilitating these sham elections in occupied Ukrainian territories.”

The EU has already sanctioned about 3,000 officials and entities over the war on Ukraine, including Putin.