Russia opens three-day State Duma vote under tight Kremlin control, ballots extended into occupied Ukraine

Russia opened voting Friday in a three-day election for the State Duma, a wartime ballot for the lower house of parliament that is being held under tight Kremlin control, with opposition weakened, anti-war voices sidelined and voting extended into occupied Ukrainian territory that Kyiv and international bodies say Russia has no right to use for elections.

The Central Election Commission set the vote for Sept. 18-20, 2026, with all 450 seats in the Duma up for grabs. Russian authorities say about 111 million people are eligible to vote. Under Russia’s mixed electoral system, half the seats are filled through party lists and half through single-member constituencies. Officials say the multi-day format is intended in part to boost turnout.

United Russia, the ruling party that backs President Vladimir Putin, is widely expected to maintain its dominance in the chamber. The Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, is a key instrument for passing Kremlin-backed legislation, making control of it especially important as the war in Ukraine continues and political space at home has narrowed.

That squeeze on dissent was visible even before voting began. In August, Russia’s Supreme Court removed the liberal anti-war party Yabloko from the federal party-list ballot, cutting off its main route to seats under the list system. Anti-war politicians have also been prosecuted, jailed or forced into exile in recent months, according to AP. Nikolai Rybakov, Yabloko’s chairman, told DW that “Excluding Yabloko from the election means refusing dialog with people who ask questions that are uncomfortable for the authorities.”

For the first time in a Duma election, Russia is also including voters in Ukrainian territories it says it annexed after 2022, including occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, along with Crimea. Ukraine has called the vote illegal, and international bodies including the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations have rejected Russian electoral exercises in occupied Ukrainian territory, saying they do not recognize Russian sovereignty there.

The election is unfolding against a continuing wartime backdrop, with Ukraine pressing a broader campaign of strikes on Russian energy infrastructure in the run-up to the vote, according to Ukrainian official statements, AP and the Institute for the Study of War. Before the ballot, Putin appealed for unity and support for troops fighting in Ukraine, saying: “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.”