Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party has secured a commanding majority in Russia’s parliamentary elections, according to results released by state media early Monday, in a vote overshadowed by a barrage of Ukrainian drone strikes and a wave of cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure.
The election, held to fill all 450 seats in the lower house State Duma, was the first since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. No party opposed to the war was permitted to run, with Russia’s Supreme Court removing the anti-war Yabloko party from the ballot weeks before the vote. Balloting also took place in Ukrainian territories occupied and annexed by Russia.
United Russia on Course for Constitutional Majority
According to results reported by Russian news agencies after just over 71 percent of ballots were counted, United Russia took 57.5 percent of the vote. The Communist Party and the nationalist LDPR trailed far behind with 14 percent and 8.7 percent respectively.
Projections by the state news agency TASS indicated the ruling party was on course to retain its two-thirds majority in the State Duma, a threshold that would allow it to amend the constitution. An exit poll published by a state-run pollster had earlier put United Russia at 49.4 percent, close to its showing in the previous election. The first official results and turnout figures were expected Monday morning.
Largest Drone Attack on Moscow Since War Began
Ukraine fired waves of drones at Moscow and the surrounding region on the final day of voting Sunday, killing two people and setting an oil refinery ablaze, officials said. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described the assault as the largest on the capital since the start of the war, involving around 1,600 drones, 450 of which were aimed directly at Moscow.
Images showed a gaping hole in a multi-storey apartment building on the outskirts of the capital, while others showed black smoke billowing from what appeared to be an oil refinery. Moscow regional Governor Andrey Vorobyov said at least two people were killed — a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man — in two separate locations. A fire triggered by a drone crashing into a 21-storey building led to the evacuation of 400 people, he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the attacks, saying “our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night.”
Moscow Vows to Intensify Strikes on Kyiv
Russia vowed to “intensify” its strikes on Kyiv in response, with the defence ministry accusing Ukraine of attempting to “disrupt the democratic will of Russian citizens.”
“In response to the Kyiv regime’s attacks on civilian targets within Russia, the Russian army will continue and intensify its high accuracy strikes against military targets in Kyiv,” the ministry said in a statement.
While diplomatic efforts to end the war have not prevented mutual strikes from escalating in recent months, Zelensky spoke by phone with US President Donald Trump, who in recent days has urged Kyiv to stop its attacks on Russian refineries. The pair are expected to meet in New York in the coming days.
Cyberattacks Target Election Infrastructure
As voting entered its final day, Russia’s electoral chief said there had been a wave of cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure. Ella Pamfilova, chair of Russia’s Central Election Commission, did not say who was responsible but said the attacks appeared to have been carried out by “highly professional, well-coordinated groups using artificial intelligence tools.”
“Over the past period, more than 1,000 waves of DDoS attacks have been recorded against infrastructure in Russia that is specifically involved in the electoral process,” Pamfilova was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service, attacks involve overwhelming a system with internet traffic so that it is unable to function normally. She warned on Saturday that saboteurs had also severed communication lines in Russia’s far east in an apparent attempt to frustrate the voting.
Opposition Squeezed Out as Turnout Watched
Turnout was seen as a potential barometer of public opinion toward Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II. Putin had urged Russians to take part, casting the vote as a show of support for Moscow’s troops and an “answer to those who want to weaken Russia.”
The Kremlin’s chief political opponents have been driven into exile, while Putin’s main rival, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison in 2024. Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, called on anti-war Russians to collectively cast their ballots at noon on Sunday, a tactic that drew crowds during the 2024 presidential election.
In Berlin and London, opposition supporters gathered outside Russian embassy buildings to protest the vote.
Yabloko, a liberal party that had called for an end to the fighting, was barred from running its federal list by Russia’s Supreme Court, although its candidates remained on the ballot in some single-mandate constituencies.
