On 20th September 2026, Ella Pamfilova, chief of the Russian Central Election Commission, announced that United Russia, President Vladimir Putin’s party, had overwhelmingly won the Parliamentary elections, polling 355 of 450 seats in the State Duma. The election, with voter turnout above 59%, saw United Russia perform significantly better than in the 2016 election, when it won 342 seats. Before the September elections, Putin’s party had 324 seats, up 31 from the previous election. In second place was the Communist Party with 40 seats, while the nationalist LDPR won 23 seats and the New People Party won 20 seats. It is important to note that this was the first Duma (parliamentary) election in Russia since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, and it included the participation of regions annexed from Ukraine by Moscow since 2022.
Ahead of this election, Ukraine executed one of the largest drone attacks against Moscow, likely intended to disrupt the voting or affect how the voting is conducted negatively. It is therefore important to ponder what the likely impact of such an overwhelming victory for Putin could portend for the war in Ukraine. I’m also aware of the criticisms that have been made against the freedom and fairness of this election, which I believe are partly valid, but do not go far enough to substantially change the outcome of the election.
United Russia’s performance in this election signifies not just Putin’s popularity in Russia but also the resilience of the Russian state amidst external pressure Moscow is facing from the ongoing war. It is very difficult for a regime whose cohesion has loosened and whose leadership capacity has waned to conduct an election amidst war. In fact, Volodymyr Zelensky has not been able or even willing to conduct elections in Ukraine because he cannot sustain it without a high risk of domestic rupture.
Moscow’s resilience becomes even more apparent when we put into perspective everything that has been done in recent years to grind Russia to a halt; multiple sanctions over the years, battlefield losses, diplomatic isolation, economic sabotage, and so many things have been done to break the central nervous system of that country. On the other hand, Ukraine has received a lot of money, weapons, and diplomatic cover to wage this war. In fact, Ukraine is more or less simply a battleground for NATO against Russia. If the point of the war for Russia was to stop Ukraine from joining NATO to avoid a NATO-Russia war, I think the reality is that the war is already between NATO and Russia, since NATO members have given everything to Ukraine to wage this war. Indeed, the war would have ended long ago had it been purely waged between Ukraine and Russia.
That said, the internal fracture aimed at bringing Russia down to concessions seems not to have worked at all, given the resilience and domestic popularity Putin seems to be enjoying in Russia, if the current election results are to go by. The Kremlin is now most likely to be emboldened by the high voter turnout in this wartime election. It speaks as evidence of the Russian public’s support for continuing the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Western allies might have expected that after years of prolonged confrontation, economic pressure, and military stalemate, the Russian political and social fabric would be softened and Moscow’s resolve to wage war would be weakened. However, with the largest pro-Kremlin majority since the beginning of the war, it is now plausible that the strategy of weakening Russia is not working. Russia’s domestic politics seems to be healthier than expected and imagined. This makes the likelihood of a negotiated settlement very low.
On the flip side, with the recent electoral outcome in one of Europe’s most stable countries, Germany, it is apparent that the worst effects of the Ukraine-Russian conflict on domestic politics and economic contraction are more likely to be experienced in Europe rather than Russia. Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lost big in the recent elections, losing largely to extremist parties which are exploiting the economic crisis in Germany partly occasioned by the disruption of Russia’s energy supply to Europe due to the war. Rather than the Russian economy and domestic politics suffering the brunt of this war, it is Western countries feeling the heat, as Germany’s political crisis currently evidences.
I came across reporting by CNN claiming that the election took place without genuine opposition being allowed to compete. United Russia won with about 58%. I think Putin should learn to cheat better; if, having excluded all his opponents and cheated the ballot, he won only 58% of the vote. That said, for all the criticism Western media has leveled against Russia for censorship, I will say only one thing: Look at how you have covered the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza, and look at yourselves in the mirror.
The writer is a Senior Research Fellow at the Development Watch Centre.
