Final results are still coming in, but one thing is already certain: United Russia, the party founded by incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin, is set to gain an absolute majority of seats in the State Duma, the lower chamber of Russia’s parliament. After 97% of the votes had been counted, United Russia had secured nearly 58% of the vote, followed by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation with 13.7%, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia with 8.9%, the New People party with 7.9%, and A Just Russia with 5.1%. Final turnout reached 59.3%, the highest figure since the 2012 election.
The main conclusion from these preliminary figures is clear: United Russia has won this electoral cycle by a substantial margin. The election was portrayed by high-profile opinion leaders as a kind of referendum or vote of confidence in the current government and, personally, in Russian President Vladimir Putin. The results of the vote could hardly be clearer. United Russia is set not only to secure an absolute majority of seats (approximately 347 out of 450) but also to surpass its previous record of 343 mandates. Moreover, high turnout has demonstrated that a significant share of the Russian electorate remains willing to participate in elections and support the current political system. With most opposition figures actively encouraging their supporters to turn out, it appears that United Russia has prevailed under competitive electoral conditions, with Russian voters ultimately giving the party the largest share of their support.
What has distinguished this electoral campaign from previous ones, however, has been the scale of foreign interference: cyberattacks, attacks on electoral infrastructure, and what Russian officials have described as psychological warfare aimed at influencing public opinion and the outcome of the vote.
Russia’s Central Electoral Commission Chair Ella Pamfilova said that her agency had registered more than 1,000 DDoS attacks against electoral infrastructure, including 124 targeting the Remote Electronic Voting (REV) system. Most of these attacks, according to Pamfilova, originated from the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Brazil, and Mexico. She also said that Russia’s security systems had blocked more than 100 million potentially malicious actions targeting resources used during the elections, while the electoral process itself proceeded normally.
Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) echoed Pamfilova’s statements, putting the number of DDoS attacks at 1,500. Vladimir Dzhabarov, head of the Federation Council Commission on the Protection of State Sovereignty and the Prevention of Interference in Russia’s Internal Affairs, said that Western governments had made a concerted effort to use new technologies to influence the psychological state of Russian citizens and achieve particular results at the polls.
However, this time the attacks were not restricted to cyberspace. The Ukrainian Armed Forces conducted what Russia described as a comprehensive operation aimed at destabilizing the electoral process in several Russian regions. Drone attacks increasingly targeted locations that could potentially house election commissions or serve as polling stations, including schools, cultural centers, social facilities, and administrative buildings. The number of reported strikes nearly quadrupled: while the border regions recorded around 400 strikes before the elections, that figure rose to as many as 1,600 during the voting period.
The situation was particularly pronounced in the four regions that Ukraine lost during the war. In Zaporozhye, a drone struck the home of Elena Astanina, the head of a precinct electoral commission, killing her. President Putin posthumously awarded her the Order of Courage. Drone attacks were also reported in Luhansk, Donetsk, and Kherson, as well as in Russia’s core border regions, including Krasnodar, Bryansk, Kursk, etc. Russia’s Interior Ministry issued a statement saying that there had been approximately 56 attempts to disrupt the electoral process through bomb threats.
Russia’s capital, Moscow, faced the most serious reported attack. Overnight into September 20, the final day of voting, Russian air defense forces, mobile fire groups, and aviation reportedly shot down 1,951 attack drones and eight long-range cruise missiles. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, who heads the United Russia party list alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, described the attack on the capital as the most massive to date. Despite all of this, the Russian electoral system withstood interference from abroad and successfully conducted what has been portrayed as a pivotal election in the country’s modern political history.
Many world leaders have already congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on the election results. Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that the results “prove wide support for the strategic course of Russia’s President aimed at defending the long-term interests of the Russian state.” Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said that the high turnout and the results of the vote had “confirmed the unequivocal support of the Russian people for the Russian President’s course towards dynamic socio-economic development of the country and defending its national interests.” Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, along with other leaders, also sent congratulatory messages.
The election result represents a significant political setback for Western governments and Ukraine, which has postponed holding a national election during the ongoing war. By winning by a landslide, Putin sends his Ukrainian counterpart a strong political message: my people support me, and therefore I can be the one negotiating a potential peace agreement. The legitimacy of the Ukrainian leadership continues to be questioned though, which is one of the factors cited in discussions about the stalled peace process.
There is no doubt that Western governments will try to delegimitize Russia’s election, but this result will likely embolden the Russian leadership to pursue a tougher stance on the Ukraine issue. It will also intensify debate over the legitimacy of the Ukrainian leadership and its right to remain in office without holding a comparable electoral process.
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