Russia to hold tightly-controlled vote in fifth year of war

Russia will hold tightly controlled parliamentary elections this week in a vote the Kremlin is expected to use as a gauge of public sentiment over the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year.

The September 18–20 election will be the first parliamentary vote since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and only the second nationwide election since President Vladimir Putin was re-elected in 2024.

Voting will also take place in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, devastated large parts of eastern Ukraine and brought unprecedented Western sanctions against Moscow. At home, Russia has imposed sweeping censorship and intensified repression of dissent.

With criticism of the war banned, no genuine opposition parties will appear on the ballot, while Putin’s ruling United Russia party is virtually certain to retain a majority in the State Duma.

A European diplomat told AFP that although the election was “quite a sham”, it remained a “ritual the Kremlin considers essential”. The authorities, the diplomat said, would seek to ensure a high turnout.

Even if the results are “predefined”, the vote still matters, said exiled Russian political scientist Nikolai Petrov.

“Just like at the time of the Soviet Union, elections should demonstrate loyalty of citizens,” he told AFP.

For Putin, who has been in power for 26 years, the election is important for demonstrating that he remains supported by ordinary Russians, Petrov said.

Half of the 450 State Duma seats will be decided through a nationwide vote for party lists, while the remainder will be contested in single-member constituencies.

Only parties that support Putin and his war policies have been allowed to contest the national ballot: United Russia, the Communist Party, A Just Russia, the nationalist LDPR and New People.

Yabloko, Russia’s only active anti-war party, was barred from standing.

“It’s a choice without a choice,” 18-year-old Yevdokia told AFP on the streets of Moscow.

She had planned to vote for Yabloko, which has called for an end to the fighting in Ukraine, but said she would now vote for New People.

Authorities have used the war to intensify repression to levels unseen since the Soviet era.

Putin’s main opponents are either in prison, in exile or dead. Among them was opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison in 2024.

Although parliament’s powers have been significantly weakened under Putin, legislative elections have previously triggered unrest.

In 2011, allegations of widespread electoral fraud and Putin’s return to the Kremlin from the post of prime minister sparked Russia’s largest protests since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In Moscow, there are few visible signs of an election campaign this year. Campaign posters are scarce apart from generic government appeals urging people to vote under the slogan, “Your voice is Russia’s strength”.

The election will also provide a gauge of public sentiment over a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and increasingly affected the daily lives of Russians far from the front.

Ukraine has stepped up long-range strikes on targets inside Russia in recent months, describing them as retaliation for Moscow’s attacks. The strikes have caused fuel shortages, billions of rubles in damage and civilian deaths.

Persistent rumours that Putin could order another mobilisation have also fuelled anxiety. Putin has denied plans for a new call-up following the unpopular 2022 mobilisation of 300,000 reservists.

Kremlin critics, Kyiv and some Western governments have accused him of preparing for another mobilisation after the election.

Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, which Moscow has banned, said she believed a new call-up was unlikely.

“They made so much effort to convince Russians not worry about it... I would be very, very surprised if it happens,” she said.

Instead, Putin’s expected victory would provide “confirmation of his legitimacy”, Stanovaya said — “legitimacy of his war”.