Russians on Friday began three days of voting in the country’s first wartime parliamentary election, which features virtually no opposition and is all but certain to secure the Kremlin’s political dominance.
Authorities spread the election over the weekend, ending Sunday, in a bid to boost turnout among the 111 million eligible voters, and they even allowed electronic balloting. Turnout was about 30% as of late Friday, including online voting, according to the Central Election Commission.
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The Kremlin wants the parliamentary election — the first since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — to underline public support for the war and give a veneer of legitimacy to its action. It has sought to avoid any political risks by stamping out even the slightest sign of dissent.
“Your choice and resolve will once again demonstrate that millions of people stand behind our fighters, that we are a united people, bound by shared values, historical memory, and love for the Motherland,” President Vladimir Putin told the nation before the vote.
The Kremlin said Putin voted online Friday and released images of him in front of a computer screen.
The main Kremlin party, United Russia, is all but assured to retain its overwhelming control of the lower house, the State Duma. Several smaller parties of the “systemic opposition” that vote in sync with the government on all key issues also are expected to retain their presence.
Voters cast two separate ballots, filling half of the Duma’s 450 seats by selecting political parties listed on the ballot. The rest are contested in single-seat constituencies, with voters choosing individual candidates.
Russians interviewed by The Associated Press expressed different expectations from the election.
Dmitry Kirillin in Moscow said earlier this week that he would like “to see some changes. To see a different party” at the helm. But Muscovite Alexander Vertukhin believed “what United Russia and the communists are doing is quite sufficient; their platforms cover everything.”
Speaking at a Moscow polling station Friday, pensioner Galina Vavilova said she thought ending the war in Ukraine “is the main thing, of course.”
“That is the most important thing right now. Everyone wants peace, that’s what it comes down to. So that our guys are safe and sound,” she said.
Another pensioner, Lyudmila Kalinina, wished for life “to stabilize for the better” and for “an end to the big divide between the ultra-rich and the extremely poor, because, after all, many people don't live a very sweet life.”
Vladimir Chubarev, a 72-year-old professor, expressed hope “for all the important initiatives our government is undertaking to succeed,” adding: “And, of course, for victory.”
The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered political entity that dared to criticize the war, was removed from the ballot last month by Russia’s Supreme Court, and only has a few dozen candidates in the single-constituency races. Additionally, some anti-war politicians have been imprisoned or forced to flee abroad ahead of the campaign.
The election follows a summer of Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on oil refineries that triggered a widespread fuel crisis. Warehouses belonging to online retailers Wildberries and Ozon also were attacked. The damage has exacerbated problems for the Russian economy and brought the war home for millions.
In Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, polling stations were briefly closed because of a threat of a drone attack, local officials said. One polling station in the Krasnodar region had to be set up in a different venue after a drone shattered windows there, said Central Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova.
For the first time, the parliamentary election includes residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began, but still doesn't fully control. Voting also is taking place in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Voters dropped their ballots in a box at one polling station in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine as an armed Russian soldier stood nearby and watched.
Speaking at a meeting with officials, Putin said that Ukraine was trying to hamper the vote, mentioning a Ukrainian strike that killed the head of a polling station in the Zaporizhzhia region.
In the Russian-held Luhansk region, 14 polling stations were using backup power sources after Ukrainian drones damaged electrical lines, Pamfilova said.
Separately, Russian officials said Ukrainian attacks earlier this week killed a polling station chief and wounded another in the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia region. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the accusation.
Authorities in Kyiv denounced the voting in the Russian-held areas as illegal and urged foreign governments and international organizations not to recognize the election, warning Ukrainians that taking part in organizing the balloting could carry criminal liability.
European Commission spokesperson Christian Wigand also called the voting in Russian-held regions “illegal” and said the European Union condemns it.
“These so-called elections represent yet another blatant violation of international law. The European Union does not, and will never recognize either the holding of these so-called elections, sham elections, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine or their results," he said.
Wigand said the way the elections are held “underscores the continued and deepening erosion of democracy in Russia," and that the Kremlin “deprives voters in Russia of a genuine choice about the future of their country.”
He also noted that Russia decided not to invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, disregarding its commitments. He vowed the EU will continue to support Russian civil society organizations, human rights groups and independent media.
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Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.
