Russia begins three-day Duma vote with Kremlin set to tighten grip

Russians on Friday began voting in a three-day parliamentary election, the country’s first since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with virtually no real opposition and the Kremlin widely expected to tighten its political dominance. Authorities have spread voting over the weekend, allowed electronic balloting and are seeking a strong turnout from the 111 million eligible voters before polls close on Sunday.

The Kremlin wants the election to show public backing for the war and lend legitimacy to its actions. President Vladimir Putin, who state news agencies said voted online on Friday, told the nation before the vote: "Your choice and resolve will once again demonstrate that millions of people stand behind our fighters, that we are a united people, bound by shared values, historical memory, and love for the Motherland."

United Russia, the main Kremlin party, is all but certain to keep its overwhelming control of the lower house, the State Duma. Several smaller parties of the "systemic opposition", which vote with the government on all key issues, are also expected to retain their presence.

Voters are casting two separate ballots. Half of the Duma’s 450 seats are being filled by selecting political parties listed on the ballot, while the rest are being contested in single-seat constituencies where voters choose individual candidates.

Russians interviewed by The Associated Press expressed differing hopes from the election. Dmitry Kirillin in Moscow said earlier this week that he would like "to see some changes. To see a different party" in charge. But Muscovite Alexander Vertukhin said "what United Russia and the communists are doing is quite sufficient; their platforms cover everything".

At a polling station in Moscow on Friday, pensioner Galina Vavilova said she believed ending the war in Ukraine "is the main thing, of course". "That is the most important thing right now. Everyone wants peace; that’s what it comes down to. So that our guys are safe and sound," she said.

Another pensioner, Lyudmila Kalinina, said she wanted life "to stabilise for the better" and hoped for "an end to the big divide between the ultra-rich and the extremely poor, because, after all, many people don’t live a very sweet life". Vladimir Chubarev, a 72-year-old professor, said he hoped "for all the important initiatives our government is undertaking to succeed," and added: "And, of course, for victory."

Russia has sharply limited anti-war voices ahead of the vote. The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered political group that openly criticised the war, was removed from the ballot last month by Russia’s Supreme Court and now has only a few dozen candidates in single-constituency races. Some anti-war politicians have also been jailed or forced to leave the country before the campaign.

The election comes after a summer of Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on oil refineries that triggered a widespread fuel crisis. Warehouses belonging to online retailers Wildberries and Ozon were also attacked. The damage has added to pressure on the Russian economy and brought the effects of the war closer to millions of people.

For the first time, the parliamentary election includes residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began, even though it does not fully control them. Voting is also taking place in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia illegally annexed in 2014. In the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, voters were seen dropping ballots into a box while an armed Russian soldier stood nearby.

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

European Commission spokesperson Christian Wigand also called the voting in Russian-held regions "illegal" and said the European Union condemned 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 were being 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 said Russia had decided not to invite observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, despite its commitments, and added that the EU would continue to support Russian civil society organisations, human rights groups and independent media.

The three-day vote is expected to return United Russia to dominance in the State Duma, while taking place against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the silencing of anti-war voices and international condemnation over voting in occupied territories.