EPAMany things about Russia are hard to predict.
The result of this election wasn’t one of them.
In a political system tightly controlled by the Kremlin, the party of power – United Russia – had been widely expected to maintain its grip on parliament.
There was no upset. No surprises. No other party came close.
And that’s after more than four and a half years of war against Ukraine, which have resulted in huge battlefield losses for the Russian army, sparked economic hardship, as well as petrol shortages due to Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil facilities.
It appears that those parties which have crossed the 5% threshold and made it into the new Duma are the same ones that were in the last parliament.
And that Duma was fully behind the Kremlin and the so-called special military operation.
EPAOne party that didn’t make it into parliament was Yabloko.
Yabloko had been the only anti-war party allowed to run in this election. But just 12 days after being registered it was removed from the ballot by the Supreme Court. That seemed to be a sign of Kremlin concern that Yabloko’s pro-peace message was gaining too much traction with the public.
The party isn’t surprised that the new Duma looks like being as compliant as the previous one.
“What other result can there be if there were 10 parties on the ballot and they all support the policies of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin?” Yabloko party chairman Nikolai Rybakov tells me.
“I don’t think the Duma will change. They’ll vote 100% for the policies of Putin just like they did.”
Although Yabloko had been struck off the party list, around 100 of its candidates remained in individual constituency races, although the party continued to face sustained pressure.
“Some of our candidates, who should have been running, are in jail, many were barred from running and some of our election observers weren’t registered and were unable to keep an eye on the voting,” Nikolai says.
Emil Leegunov/Anadolu via Getty ImagesAhead of the final day of this three-day election, Ukraine had launched a large-scale drone attack on the Moscow area. The city’s oil refinery was hit.
At a polling station near the oil refinery, I spoke to voters about the attack.
Here, too, there was little surprise at what had transpired.
More than four and a half years into Russia’s war on Ukraine, Muscovites had grown used to their city periodically becoming a front line. Instead of astonishment, there was quiet resignation.
“People in the Donbas, as well as in Bryansk, and Belgorod near the Ukrainian border, hear this kind of thing every day,” says a voter called Viktor, who has exited the polling station.
“They just get on with their lives.”
If the outcome of this election was predictable, what happens next is less clear.
The Kremlin will likely use the result to claim that most Russians have rallied behind the president, and to justify future policies and subsequent decisions on the war.
President Putin recently ruled out another wave of mobilisation.
“There is no scenario today that would require it,” he declared.
Not today. But what about tomorrow?
Despite official denials, in Russian society there remains deep anxiety over the possibility of a new mobilisation.
At the very least, the Kremlin is likely to treat the election result as a “mandate from the people” to continue the war.
