Russia concludes State Duma election as drone strikes hit Moscow region

Final day of State Duma voting

Voting concludes on Sunday 20 September in the three-day election to renew all 450 seats in Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma. The election is the first federal legislative vote held since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The governing United Russia party, which holds a majority in the outgoing parliament, is expected by analysts to retain control of the legislature. Only Kremlin-approved parties were registered to compete alongside United Russia, including the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, A Just Russia, and the New People party. The anti-war party Yabloko was barred from the ballot, prompting exiled opposition figures to urge anti-war citizens to assemble at voting stations simultaneously at noon on Sunday. Voting stations opened on Friday morning and close at 18:00 GMT on Sunday, with initial results expected shortly afterward.

Drone attacks on the capital and surrounding region

Russian authorities reported that Moscow and the surrounding region were targeted by hundreds of Ukrainian drones overnight before the final hours of voting. Moscow Oblast Governor Andrei Vorobyov stated that air defense units shot down 249 drones over the Moscow region. Falling debris and strikes caused damage in residential districts, killing a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man in separate locations. In another settlement, emergency workers evacuated 400 residents after a drone hit an apartment building and started a fire. In Moscow itself, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that air defenses intercepted at least 186 aerial devices, noting that a facility at the Moscow oil refinery sustained damage without reported casualties.

Coercive voting in occupied Ukrainian territories

Russian authorities extended the legislative vote into four partially occupied and annexed regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Nine single-mandate constituencies were established in these areas to send representatives to the State Duma. Early voting in eastern and southern Ukraine began in late August, featuring mobile electoral teams accompanied by masked, armed Russian soldiers carrying ballot boxes door to door. Academic Serghy Danylov stated that residents who refuse to vote face threats of being registered on lists of unreliable citizens and subjected to arbitrary detention in cellars. Alena Lunova of the human rights organization Zmina described the coercive conditions confronting local populations.

Russia has created a situation in which it is impossible to avoid participating in the electoral process. Someone can knock on your door and an armed soldier can then simply "advise" you to participate in the vote.

International condemnation and domestic pressures

Ukrainian officials rejected the balloting across occupied territories as an unlawful effort to formalize territorial control. Deputy head of the Ukrainian Central Election Commission Serghyi Doubovik criticized the vote.

This imitation of an electoral procedure aims to legitimize the occupation of a Ukrainian territory recognized as such by the United Nations.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe stated that voting outcomes in occupied Ukrainian territory carry no legal validity under international law, while the European Union condemned the balloting for taking place under systematic and institutionalized repression. Inside Russia, voters participate under Western economic sanctions, regular cross-border strikes, localized internet restrictions, and regional fuel shortages.