Polling stations open in Russia's Far East as Duma vote begins

Polling stations opened early on Friday in Russia’s Far East, starting a three-day election for the 450 seats of the State Duma, the country’s lower house of parliament. Voting runs until 18:00 GMT on Sunday, and the Pacific regions of Kamchatka and Chukotka are the first of Russia’s eleven time zones to cast ballots.

It is Russia’s first parliamentary election since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Only parties that support President Vladimir Putin and the war have been registered to run: United Russia, the Communist Party, the nationalist LDPR, A Just Russia and New People. The Yabloko party, which had called for an end to the fighting, was barred shortly before the vote, and one of its main figures, Lev Shlosberg, was imprisoned for criticising the war.

As eNCA reported on 18 September, the vote is widely expected to return a United Russia majority. Few in Russia doubt the outcome, and the election is being watched less for its result than for what it tells the Kremlin about public feeling toward a war now in its fifth year.

The war reaches home

On the opening morning, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that Russian air defences had destroyed dozens of Ukrainian drones bound for the capital overnight. He said more than 350 unmanned aerial vehicles flew toward the Moscow region between 20:00 on 17 September and 07:00 on 18 September, most destroyed at an outer defensive perimeter, with some 64 shot down as they approached the city.

This year, Ukrainian strikes have reached as far as the Urals and Siberia, causing billions of roubles in damage and civilian deaths deep inside Russia. The war has also broken Moscow’s ties with the West, which has responded with extensive economic sanctions.

Putin, who has ruled Russia since New Year’s Eve 1999, called on Russians ahead of the vote to show troops that “behind our fighters stand millions of people” and to demonstrate a “common answer to those who want to weaken Russia”.

Opposition calls and a divided strategy

Russia’s exiled opposition urged anti-Kremlin Russians not to boycott but to vote “against Putin’s party”, publishing recommendations of who to back in which region. Alexei Navalny, Putin’s main opponent, died in an Arctic prison in 2024. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, called on anti-war Russians to vote at the same time, at noon on Sunday.

Yabloko disagreed with that approach. Its chairman, Nikolay Rybakov, said at a party meeting in Saint Petersburg this week: “You are suggesting that we once again go, like sheep, dancing to their tune, and vote for those who have caused the deaths of people in Russia and Ukraine?”

A 20-year-old Muscovite named Apostol told AFP he “did not see the point” in voting for anyone but United Russia because they will “win anyway”. Tatiana Stanovaya, a France-based Russian political expert, told AFP that Putin likes to compare his political situation to those in European countries, and that the vote is “personally, emotionally, politically very important” to him.

Some Russians fear the post-election period will bring a new military mobilisation similar to the one in 2022, when Putin called up 300,000 reservists, a move that led to an exodus of draft-age men. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused the Kremlin of planning a fresh mobilisation campaign “this autumn”, a suggestion Putin has denied.

What it means from here

For South Africa, the vote matters less for its result than for the direction it confirms. Russia remains a fellow member of BRICS and a source of fertiliser, grain and fuel for African markets, and the sanctions regime that followed the 2022 invasion continues to shape how South African banks, insurers and shipping lines handle Russian trade. A Duma that returns unchanged offers no signal of a shift in that arrangement.

The vote runs until 18:00 GMT on Sunday. Results are expected shortly after.

Source: eNCA, Russians begin voting in controlled election as war drags on, 18 September 2026.