Putin’s party secures record score in Russia election

President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party emerged victorious in Russia's parliamentary elections, held in the aftermath of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The ruling party secured approximately 58% of the votes for the 225 deputies elected through party lists, according to initial data released by Russia's Central Election Committee.

In addition to these party-list seats, another 225 deputies will be chosen in single-member constituencies, where United Russia candidates are also expected to dominate. The election process spanned three days, concluding on Sunday evening. The European Union's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, criticized these elections, stating they represented "another major setback for Russian democracy," and added that their results "were never in doubt."

Kallas has proposed measures against those involved in facilitating these fraudulent elections in Ukrainian territories unlawfully occupied by Russia since the 2022 invasion.

Residents of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson — regions that Russia illegally annexed following the 2022 invasion — participated in the vote. Some of these residents were reportedly forced to take part in the election. The war in Ukraine played a significant role in the political discourse surrounding the elections, which were marred by widespread repression.

Dissenting viewpoints were effectively suppressed, and Yabloko — the country's sole openly anti-war political party — was barred from running a national list of candidates for the State Duma. Yabloko's leader, Nikolai Rybakov, commented on the election results, noting that a party previously absent from the parliament for 23 years had secured second place in the polls due to the circumstances under which the elections were held.

Rybakov further stated that, given the restrictions imposed on his party, it was impossible for authorities to do anything other than exclude Yabloko from the electoral process. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who serves as the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, echoed similar sentiments, expressing that the Russian people continue to trust their dominant political force, Putin's United Russia party, and believe it is appropriate to maintain their support for the party in various levels of governance.