Russians finished voting Sunday in a parliamentary contest whose outcome is widely seen as a foregone conclusion. With polls now closed after three days of balloting across 11 time zones—and in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine—the main suspense centers on turnout, CNN reports, viewed by analysts as a rough gauge of public sentiment on the war in Ukraine and the country's political direction. The pro-Kremlin United Russia party is seeking to retain its overwhelming grip on the 450-seat Duma; it held 324 seats after the last election in 2021, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Genuine opponents to President Vladimir Putin's rule were largely absent. Human rights group OVD-Info says more than 2,000 people are jailed for political reasons, and anti-war party Yabloko was barred from the national ballot, with its candidates reporting detentions and access problems at polling stations. Electronic voting, heavily promoted with prize incentives in Moscow, drew fresh criticism as lacking transparency; some voters reported being refused paper ballots. The Kremlin, which denies irregularities, wants a result it can brand the results as proof of public backing for both Putin and the "special military operation" in Ukraine—a vote the government there dismisses as a sham.
Russia's exiled opposition, including the widow of Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, called on opponents of the war to cast their votes at noon Sunday, per the AP. Thousands of Russians living in Armenia took part in the vote, lining up outside the Russian Embassy in the capital, Yerevan. Some of them joined the "Noon for a Peaceful Russia" anti-war demonstration, holding anti-war and anti-Putin posters. Lidiya Klimenko said she did not think her vote would have any real impact. The most useful thing to do, she said, was "to see other people who are also against the war, to be together in a shared cause." The first results, in Russia's west, were expected within hours of the polls closing.
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