Russia election ends under Kremlin shadow amid record Ukrainian drone attacks

Moscow,UPDATED: Sep 20, 2026 19:48 IST

Russia’s first parliamentary election since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022 was due to end on Sunday, with the Kremlin widely expected to keep a firm grip on power. The vote has unfolded with almost no meaningful opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s policies, while Russian authorities have projected it as a sign of public backing for the war.

The final day of polling came as Russia said Ukrainian forces fired more than 1,000 drones at the country overnight, including hundreds aimed at Moscow. The three-day vote, which began on Friday, has also drawn condemnation because it includes residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began but does not fully control, along with Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

Authorities in Kyiv called the voting in Russian-held areas illegal and urged foreign governments not to recognise the result. The European Union said on Friday that the move was a “blatant violation of international law.”

The Kremlin wants the election to showcase support for the war and legitimise its actions, while avoiding political risks by crushing dissent. A large state media campaign and tight control over the process, in the absence of genuine opposition, have made it highly likely that the Kremlin will maintain its dominance of Russian politics even as economic pressures rise and Ukrainian drone attacks reach deeper into Russia.

Russia has 111 million eligible voters. Authorities encouraged online voting to raise turnout. Voters cast two ballots, with half of the State Duma’s 450 seats filled through party lists and the rest through single-seat constituencies. Preliminary results were expected within hours of voting ending in western Russia. United Russia, the main Kremlin party, was widely expected to retain overwhelming control of the lower house, while several smaller parties of the so-called systemic opposition were also expected to keep their seats.

The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered political group to openly criticise the war, was removed from the party-list ballot last month by Russia’s Supreme Court and has only a few dozen candidates in single-seat races. Some anti-war politicians were jailed or forced abroad before the campaign. Yabloko and the Communist Party said many of their observers were turned away from polling stations.

Russia did not invite observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the body of “double standards” over its criticism of Russia. OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Pere Joan Pons said the decision breached Russia’s commitments as a member state. Yabloko said one of its observers lost consciousness while being arrested by police at a polling station in St Petersburg on Saturday after officials accused him of trying to “disrupt the elections” and called police.

The parties reported violations such as sealed ballot boxes being opened, polling station doors not being secured overnight, and refusals to issue paper ballots. Those claims could not be independently verified. At one polling station in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region, voters put their ballots into a box while an armed Russian soldier stood nearby and watched.

Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, said on Sunday that the electronic voting system in Moscow had been targeted by cyberattacks. Independent outlet SotaVision reported that voters across Moscow had complained of glitches in electronic registry systems at polling stations. According to the outlet’s Telegram channel, people were not given paper ballots and were instead asked to vote through an electronic terminal.

Leonid Volkov, a close associate of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, said the reported breakdown in the system used to issue paper ballots in Moscow may have been deliberate and aimed at pushing voters towards electronic voting. “Demand a paper ballot!” he wrote on X on Sunday. Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov, who had urged supporters to spoil party-list ballots, voted in St Petersburg on Sunday with bright green writing on his ballot that read “For freedom,” “For peace,” and “Yabloko.”

Russia’s exiled opposition, including Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya, called on anti-war Russians to vote at noon on Sunday. In Armenia, thousands of Russians took part, with citizens lining up outside the Russian Embassy in Yerevan for the “Noon for a Peaceful Russia” anti-war demonstration. Some carried anti-war and anti-Putin posters. In Germany, Russians voted at the embassy in Berlin, where dissident Andrei Pivovarov, a former head of the Open Russia group, spoke at a protest outside.

The last day of voting also coincided with a major wave of Ukrainian attacks. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces shot down 1,110 Ukrainian drones across the country, as well as over Crimea and the Black Sea. Two people were killed and 20 were wounded across the wider Moscow region, Governor Andrei Vorobyov said. The election follows a summer of long-range Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries that caused a widespread fuel crisis, while warehouses belonging to online retailers Wildberries and Ozon were also hit. As voting closed, the election reflected both the Kremlin’s tight control at home and the growing impact of the war inside Russia.

With PTI Inputs

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