Russia holds Duma election under shadow of war: opposition barred, Kremlin blames EU for alleged cyberattacks
From September 18 to 20, Russia is holding State Duma elections — the first since the full-scale war against Ukraine began — with opposition parties barred from running. At the same time, the Kremlin claims the European Union is plotting cyberattacks on the election system to sow chaos.
Three-day vote across eleven time zones
From September 18 to 20, Russia is electing a new State Duma for the first time since the start of its full-scale war against Ukraine. Voting began in Kamchatka and Chukotka and moves westward across eleven time zones to Kaliningrad, according to n-tv.de. More than 110 million Russian citizens are eligible to vote for 450 Duma deputies; at the same time, eight regions are directly electing governors, three regions' parliaments will choose governors, and 39 regions are electing regional assemblies, according to web.de.
Opposition shut out of the race
Only ten parties appear on the ballot, all considered loyal to the Kremlin and supportive of the war, web.de reports. In August, Russia's Supreme Court barred the liberal anti-war party Yabloko from the election — the last remaining force in the country openly opposed to the war. According to exiled former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who lives in London and spoke to Handelsblatt (as cited by web.de), Yabloko was initially allowed to run because its poll ratings stood at 2-3 percent, but within two weeks support surged — possibly to as much as 25 percent — which alarmed the Kremlin. Other candidates were disqualified over signature-verification issues, formal errors, or "foreign agent" designations.
Kremlin accuses EU of planning cyberattacks
Shortly before the vote, Russia's foreign intelligence service SVR announced that the European Union was preparing cyberattacks on the electronic voting infrastructure and disruptions at polling stations inside Russia and abroad, allegedly intending to "sow chaos on election day," n-tv.de reports. The statement named no names and offered no evidence. n-tv.de notes this claim runs counter to documented facts: at the end of 2025, the German government summoned Russia's ambassador over the "Storm-1516" campaign, which spread fabricated stories, including one about German politician Robert Habeck; Germany's Foreign Ministry attributed a 2024 cyberattack on its air traffic control system to the group APT28 ("Fancy Bear"), linked to Russian military intelligence (GRU); and the European Parliament has repeatedly passed resolutions on Russian election interference.
Voting also held in occupied territories
For the first time, voting is also taking place in Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine's Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well as in Crimea, annexed in 2014, according to web.de. The international community regards this as a violation of international law.
Putin's approval falling, war fatigue rising
Khodorkovsky says Russia can keep waging the war only because of China's support, and that the population is growing impatient — unwilling to tolerate the war for more than two more years. As n-tv.de reports, the state pollster VTsIOM stopped publishing its "open-ended" trust survey this spring, after Putin's rating in it fell to 29.5 percent — the lowest since the war began — while the "closed" version, in which his name is suggested to respondents, still showed around 70 percent. The campaign has been unusually muted: televised debates were cancelled or candidates stayed silent, with broadcasters showing Putin instead, even though he is not himself standing for election. Russians are also weary from sanctions, inflation, and fuel shortages caused by Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries.
