Putin's party wins Duma polls

Russia announced on Friday final results of its tightly controlled presidential election, saying President Vladimir Putin's party reinforced its supermajority and around a 10th of new MPs would be Ukraine war veterans. Russia's first parliamentary election since Moscow launched its Ukraine war in 2022 was held between September 18 and 20, with the Kremlin also organising voting in occupied Ukraine. It was conducted without meaningful opposition. Russia's electoral head, Ella Pamfilova, said that with all the votes counted, the president's United Russia party had won 349 of the 450 seats in the Duma—the lower house of parliament. This beats its previous record of 343 seats and hands it an even larger supermajority.