Russians are heading to the polls today for the third and final day of parliamentary elections, in which Vladimir Putin’s party is expected to prevail, more than four and a half years after the start of the war in Ukraine.
These parliamentary elections—the first since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022—are to elect the 450 members of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, and are also being held in Ukrainian territories that have been occupied and annexed by Russia.
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Recalling the reality of a conflict that in recent months has been marked by an escalation of attacks on both sides of the front, the final day of the elections dawned on the Russian capital with an attack involving hundreds of drones. Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, reported that 249 drones were shot down by air defenses, striking several residential areas in the region and killing two people.
In Moscow itself, a major oil refinery sustained damage, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. In a post on Telegram today, he denounced an “unprecedented” attack that was “obviously designed to disrupt the elections.” “The enemy did not succeed in this,” Sobyanin said, adding that more than 1,600 drones were shot down by Russian air defenses, of which “450 were heading toward Moscow.”
The election results leave little room for doubt in a country where dissent is harshly suppressed by the authorities and where the only party openly opposed to the war—Yabloko—was excluded from the process.
Voter turnout is significant
Analysts will focus, in any case, on voter turnout and the results of the alternative parties in order to assess the prevailing mood among Russians, who are facing Western economic sanctions, regular attacks from Ukraine, fuel shortages, and internet restrictions in several regions.
Opposed to United Russia, the ruling party, only political groups that support, to varying degrees, Vladimir Putin and the continuation of the conflict in Ukraine were allowed to participate — the Communists of the KPRF, the nationalists of the LDPR, the conservatives of Fair Russia, and the liberals of the Young People’s Party.
Having been excluded from the process, the exiled opposition called on all “Russians opposed to the war” to vote against Vladimir Putin’s party on the same day and at the same time, at noon on Sunday, to show how many of them there are.
Voting, which began Friday morning, will continue until 9:00 p.m. Greek time today, and the first results are expected shortly thereafter.
Source: cnn.gr
