Why Trump is so helpful to Russia on the Ukraine war

Russia pledged on Sunday to ramp up its assaults on Kyiv in retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow, following an exit poll forecasting the ruling United Russia party to secure a significant victory in tightly monitored parliamentary elections. Ukrainian drones launched on the final voting day struck Moscow and its surrounding areas, resulting in at least two deaths and causing an oil refinery to burn, according to officials.

The Russian defense ministry accused Ukraine of attempting to undermine the democratic will of Russian citizens and vowed a response. An exit poll from a state-run pollster projected United Russia to win 49.4 percent of the vote, mirroring its performance in the preceding election. In response to the Kyiv regime's attacks on civilian targets within Russia, the Russian army will escalate its precision strikes against military targets in Kyiv, the Russian defense ministry declared.

This marked the most substantial attack on Moscow since the Kremlin initiated its Ukraine campaign in 2022, involving approximately 1,600 drones, 450 of which targeted the capital directly. Images revealed a large breach in a high-rise apartment complex on the outskirts of the capital, along with plumes of black smoke emanating from what seemed to be an oil refinery.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the attacks, stating that their long-range responses had a significant impact in the Moscow region the previous night. One of Russia's crucial oil facilities and the aggressor's logistics center were among the targets hit. At least two individuals lost their lives, a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man, in two distinct incidents.

One drone crash into a 21-story building led to the evacuation of 400 people, officials added. Ukraine has employed drones against Russian infrastructure throughout the conflict, in response to Russian bombardments of its towns and cities. The parliamentary vote, marking Russia's first since launching its Ukraine offensive, saw United Russia projected to secure 49.4 percent of the vote, with the Communist Party and the nationalist LDPR party trailing at 14.2 percent and 10.7 percent respectively.

Former president Dmitry Medvedev, who heads United Russia, expressed satisfaction with his party's performance, emphasizing the need to implement President Putin's decisions. All other parties backing the war and Putin supported the results, though the exit poll did not account for electronic voting and military ballots. Yabloko, a liberal party that had advocated for an end to the fighting, was barred from running its federal list by Russia's Supreme Court, although some of its candidates remained on the ballot in individual constituencies.

President Putin encouraged Russians to participate, framing the vote as a show of support for Moscow's troops and a response to those who sought to weaken Russia. The Kremlin's chief political adversaries have been exiled, while Putin's main rival, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison in 2024. Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, urged anti-war Russians to vote en masse at noon on Sunday, a strategy that garnered attention during the 2024 presidential election.

In Berlin and London, AFP correspondents witnessed several opposition supporters protesting outside Russian embassy buildings over the vote. The initial official results and voter turnout are expected on Monday. Cyberattacks heightened during voting hours, with Russia's electoral chief, Ella Pamfilova, reporting a surge of cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure, allegedly executed by highly coordinated groups leveraging artificial intelligence tools.

Over 1,000 waves of DDoS attacks, which overwhelm systems with internet traffic to disrupt their normal functioning, had been recorded against Russia's electoral infrastructure, she stated. Pamfilova cautioned that saboteurs had also severed communication lines in Russia's far east, potentially obstructing the voting process.