Under the shadow of cyberattacks and an unprecedented barrage of Ukrainian drones, Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party secured a commanding lead in parliamentary elections, according to results published by state media.
The vote, which filled every seat in the lower house State Duma, was the first nationwide parliamentary election since Moscow launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
With no party permitted to campaign against the war, the field was tightly controlled. Russia’s Supreme Court removed the anti-war Yabloko party from the ballot weeks before voting began.
Balloting was also held in Ukrainian territories that Russia occupies and has annexed.
Most of the ballots have been counted in Russia’s parliamentary elections
Turnout is being watched as a possible indicator of public sentiment toward a conflict widely described as Europe’s deadliest since World War II.
After just over 71% of ballots were counted, Russian news agencies reported United Russia with 57.5% of the vote.
The Communist Party followed with 14%, while the nationalist LDPR stood at 8.7%.
Projections carried by the state agency TASS indicated the ruling party was on track to preserve its two-thirds majority in the 450-seat State Duma — a threshold that would allow it to amend the constitution.
The first official results and turnout will be expected on this morning.
The final day of voting coincided with waves of Ukrainian drone strikes on Moscow and the surrounding region, which officials said killed two people and sparked a blaze at an oil refinery.
In response, Russia promised to “intensify” its strikes on Kyiv, with the defence ministry accusing Ukraine of trying to “disrupt the democratic will of Russian citizens”.
An exit poll from a state-run pollster put United Russia on course for 49.4 per cent, roughly in line with its previous election performance.
“In response to the Kyiv regime’s attacks on civilian targets within Russia, the Russian army will continue and intensify its high accuracy strikes against military targets in Kyiv,” the Russian defence ministry said.
Wave of Ukrainian drones
In what officials described as the largest attack on Moscow since the war began, around 1,600 drones were involved, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, adding that 450 were aimed directly at the capital.
Photographs showed a gaping hole torn into a multi-storey apartment building on the outskirts of Moscow, while another image captured thick black smoke rising from what appeared to be an oil refinery.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the operation, saying “our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night”.
Even as diplomatic efforts to end the war have failed to prevent the escalation of reciprocal strikes in recent months, Mr Zelensky spoke by phone with US President Donald Trump, who in recent days has urged Kyiv to stop its attacks on Russian refineries.
The pair are expected to meet in New York in the coming days.
Watch: Ukraine launches drone attacks on Moscow
At least two people — a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man — died in separate locations, according to Moscow regional Governor Andrey Vorobyov.
Mr Vorobyov said a drone crash into a 21-storey building caused a fire that forced the evacuation of 400 people.
Throughout the war, Ukraine has used drones to strike Russian infrastructure, framing the attacks as retaliation for Russia’s bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities.
Yabloko, a liberal party that had called for an end to the fighting, was blocked by Russia’s Supreme Court from running a federal list, though some of its candidates remained on ballots in certain single-mandate constituencies.
Mr Putin had called on Russians to take part in the poll
Mr Putin urged Russians to vote, portraying participation as a show of backing for Moscow’s troops and an “answer to those who want to weaken Russia”.
Many of the Kremlin’s most prominent political opponents have been pushed into exile, and Mr Putin’s main rival, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison in 2024.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, called on anti-war Russians to cast ballots together at noon yesterday — a tactic that drew crowds during the 2024 presidential election.
In Berlin and London, AFP reporters saw dozens of opposition supporters gathered outside Russian embassy buildings to protest the vote.
Cyberattacks
As polling moved into its final day, Russia’s electoral chief reported a surge in cyberattacks aimed at election-related systems.
Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, did not identify who she believed was behind the attacks.
She said the activity appeared to come from “highly professional, well-coordinated groups using artificial intelligence tools,” according to Russian news agencies.
“Over the past period, more than 1,000 waves of DDoS attacks have been recorded against infrastructure in Russia that is specifically involved in the electoral process,” Ms Pamfilova was quoted as saying.
DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks work by flooding a system with internet traffic, preventing it from operating normally.
She also warned on Saturday that communication lines in Russia’s far east had been cut by saboteurs, in what she described as an apparent attempt to obstruct voting.
