On 18 September, a three-day parliamentary (State Duma) election will begin in Russia. It will be the first Duma election since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The last election, in September 2021, was recorded as an anticipated victory for the ruling party, United Russia, with 49.82 percent of the vote and a majority of 324 seats out of 450. United Russia was formed in 2001, first participated in Duma elections in 2003 and has won every election since. The upcoming election would mark its sixth victory.
The last competitive and pluralistic Duma elections in Russia took place in 1999. By 2003, the OSCE reported heavy use of state resources in favour of the ruling party. Since then, Duma elections have become progressively less free, fair, and competitive. In 2011, election fraud led to large-scale demonstrations commonly known as the Bolotnaya protests. Estimates of United Russia’s genuine support in 2021 ranged from 25 to 40 percent, yet the official figure stood at just below 50 percent.
The Presidential Administration (PA), and specifically Sergei Kiriyenko, its first deputy chief of staff, is responsible for ensuring that elections proceed as close as possible to the Kremlin’s expectations. Kiriyenko was brought into the PA in 2016 to help deliver the desired outcome in the 2018 presidential election. In that sense, elections are one of his core specialities and responsibilities under Vladimir Putin.
During his decade in the post, Kiriyenko has institutionalised several features that make elections easier for the Kremlin to manage and more centralised, reducing dependence on how regional authorities handle the results. Two of the most effective tools are electronic voting, which significantly simplifies data manipulation and removes the problem of election observers, who were crucial to exposing fraud in 2011, and three-day voting, which greatly amplifies coercive voting and the use of state institutions and public sector employers to mobilise turnout and pressure employees, students, and others dependent on the state to vote.
Even so, ahead of this Duma election, the Kremlin’s political managers have been highly active in sterilising the ballot. This has been done, first, by weakening the Communist Party (CPRF) as the most likely vehicle for protest voting. Dozens of criminal cases were opened against prominent and aspiring members of the party, a number of recognisable figures lost their mandates, and the party leadership was forced to carry out “self-purification” to reduce its potential threat to the PA. Second, by elevating the artificially constructed New People party, a de facto PA project; and third, by eliminating Yabloko, a “social liberal” party, at the last minute, only 12 days after it was registered to participate.
The reason for these extra measures, on top of an already extensive infrastructure for manipulating the vote, is the unfavourable context for the September election. The war in Ukraine is not over, and there is little or no basis for claiming that it will end soon (more than 55 percent of Russians now think it will last for more than another 12 months), a prospect that is increasingly agitating much of the population. Anxiety levels recorded by the Levada Center in June 2026 showed that 70 percent of Russians assessed the overall situation in Russia negatively (57 percent as “tense” and 13 percent as “critical or explosive”). Those figures were higher only in September 2022, during the mass mobilisation campaign.
The negative atmosphere around the election has been worsened by two major developments in late spring and summer 2026. The first was a campaign championed by the FSB, Russia’s domestic security and intelligence agency, to sharply limit the ability of citizens to use mobile internet, popular messengers such as WhatsApp and Telegram, and VPN services to access YouTube. It generally looked like an effort to cut Russians off from outside web traffic. The PA even had to go public, appealing to Putin to slow the restrictive campaign on the grounds that it was immensely unpopular and would significantly reduce the predictability of the Duma election. In the end, the assault on “internet freedom” was scaled back, or at least paused, until after the vote.
The Presidential Administration (PA), and specifically Sergei Kiriyenko, its first deputy chief of staff, is responsible for ensuring that elections proceed as close as possible to the Kremlin’s expectations. Anton Barbashin
The second blow came from Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries, which have produced gasoline shortages across the country. Russian authorities managed some damage control and avoided collapses in key cities by increasing imports and boosting existing capacity. Even so, in the week leading up to the election, deficits or irregularities in supply remain visible in 63 of the 83 federal subjects (89 according to Russia’s official count, which includes occupied Ukrainian territories).
In this context, United Russia, the party that millions of Russians will be pressured to vote for through state institutions and other levers of administrative control, is incapable of addressing most of the war’s most painful consequences. To strengthen the party’s reputation – even the two major state-affiliated pollsters, VTsIOM and FOM, give it only 37.4 and 33 percent support – Putin personally entered the campaign on United Russia’s behalf. He now speaks at United Russia conventions, meets key party figures, and allows the party to make heavy use of his image and link its victory directly to trust in Putin.
The last time he did so was in 2007; since then, he has preferred to stay above party politics. Breaking that pattern and becoming more active in United Russia’s campaign has meant that the Duma campaign and United Russia’s results have become strongly associated with trust in, and approval of, President Putin himself.
This has raised the stakes for the PA.
First, it must ensure that the Duma elections are held safely and predictably to show audiences at home and abroad that, despite the war in Ukraine, the situation is manageable and every legally mandated procedure is being carried out on time, without delay or postponement.
Second, insofar as these elections – especially with Putin’s active participation and significant turnout (the Kremlin’s target is at least 50 percent) – are meant to legitimise the Russian authorities’ actions in Ukraine and at home, the results will be treated as a “mandate from the people” to justify whatever unpopular measures follow the election: new taxes, further internet restrictions, and a possible new round of mobilisation. Putin often talks about the illegitimacy of President Zelensky because of Ukraine’s postponed 2024 presidential election; it is important to him that all Russian legal procedures are formally observed. How they are conducted, or what legal acrobatics are required to maintain the illusion of legality, is irrelevant.
Third, the elections need to successfully manage the elites: to reshuffle the list of people sitting in the Duma so that it better represents the interests of various clans and corporations, and to promote, at Putin’s direction, a limited group of veterans of the war in Ukraine.
Above all, however, these wartime Duma elections are a demonstration of Russians’ support for the war in Ukraine and for Putin’s continued rule – whether through active participation or quiet absenteeism. Hence, the Russian state will seek to avoid any sign of protest or discontent at any cost.
The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
