How Russia’s most consequential election in years handed Putin even more power

Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won a record supermajority in the Duma, authorities announced on Monday after a tightly controlled three-day election without parties critical of the Kremlin or the war in Ukraine.

Electoral chief Ella Pamfilova said preliminary results showed United Russia — which has dominated Russian politics for 25 years — won 355 of the Duma’s 450 seats.

The result handed Putin’s party an increased supermajority and beat its previous record of 343 seats — giving it a free hand for constitutional changes.

The Kremlin said the first parliamentary election since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine in 2022 showed Russians were united around Putin, who has been in power since New Year’s Eve 1999.

The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions in Ukraine and hit ordinary lives in Russia more than ever this year.

Russia has banned criticism of its military campaign and Yabloko, the only party that called for an end to the war, was barred from running for the federal parliament. It was, however, approved in some regions for local voting.

“These indicators, of course, point to the highest level of consolidation within Russian society around the head of state,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a briefing with journalists.

Putin had encouraged Russians to vote in support of troops in Ukraine and Moscow also organised voting in occupied Ukraine.

Pamfilova said turnout was over 59 per cent, thanking Russians for voting despite what she called “psychological pressure on Russia”.

Russia’s campaign in Ukraine broke its ties with the West. Ukraine hit Moscow with its biggest drone attack of the war on Sunday, the last day of voting, killing two people and setting an oil refinery ablaze.

“Despite the extreme situation, we were successful in ensuring the maximum security of these elections,” Pamfilova told a Moscow press conference.

War veterans enter Duma

Forty-nine veterans who fought for Moscow in Ukraine are expected to enter parliament to represent United Russia, the party told Russian state media.

The Kremlin has sought to promote soldiers who fought in Ukraine into positions of authority when they return, with Moscow glorifying its troops.

While nobody in Russia doubted United Russia would win, the election did bring one unexpected result: in the Novgorod region, in western Russia, war-critical Yabloko entered the regional parliament.

On social media, Yabloko’s Novgorod branch said it received some 12,000 votes — just over six per cent of votes in the region — enough to enter the regional legislature.

“Peace, freedom and life without fear — these are the values that have struck a chord in people’s hearts and souls,” it said.

In central Moscow, Alexey, a 41-year-old quality director who declined to give his full name, told the Agence France-Presse news agency that United Russia won “in an uncompetitive contest, since the Yabloko party was removed from the race”.

“From my point of view, we’ve definitely moved further away from peace,” he said, adding: “there are no alternative solutions right now, so everything will stay the same.”

Russia’s Communist party came second in the vote, winning 40 Duma seats. The nationalist LDPR party took 25 seats, and the New People party won 20.

The election result is expected to further tighten Putin’s grip on power.

Some fear a new military mobilisation in Russia. Putin has denied this while Ukraine accuses Russia of planning a call-up in the coming weeks.

The election took place amid the escalation of the Ukraine war with no diplomatic solution in sight.

In some regions, voting also took place for the local heads.

In Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov — known for ruling the Muslim-majority republic with an iron fist — won 99.85 per cent of the vote, the electoral commission said.

‘Veneer of democracy’

Opposing Kadyrov is hugely dangerous in Chechnya, which is known for extrajudicial killings.

Putin’s political opponents are in exile, prison or dead — such as his main opponent Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison in 2024.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, dismissed Russia’s “so-called” election.

“The Kremlin silenced dissent, barred the only registered party that opposed its war in Ukraine, and shut out international election monitors. The veneer of democracy is all that remains in Russia,” Kallas said.

In a joint statement, five countries including the UK, Australia and Canada condemned Russia’s “sham” parliamentary elections in swathes of occupied Ukraine, branding the move “part of a wider system of occupation”.

Hopes for a brighter future

Reuters reported that no one its reporter had interviewed on Tuesday expressed any surprise at the election’s outcome. Some expressed hope that positive changes could follow.

“In the morning I saw that United Russia was winning. It probably comes as a surprise to nobody,” Moscow resident Tatyana said. Asked what she would like to change, she said: “Well, I guess everyone knows the most acute thing — the conflict in Ukraine. I’d like to see it end sooner, with peaceful methods if possible.”

Daniil, who said he had been unable to vote because the system wrongly suggested he had already done so, said he wanted Ukrainian drone attacks to stop so that people could be more relaxed about taking internal flights.

Yelena, another Moscow resident, said she hoped disruptions to fuel supplies would end and prices would not rise too fast.

Others, though, like Alexandra, who said she worked in Moscow’s swanky Tsum department store, said they were satisfied and were not looking for particular post-election changes.

“Things are good the way they are,” she said.

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