NewzRussians headed to the polls on Sunday for a third and final day of tightly controlled parliamentary elections set to strengthen the Kremlin’s grip on power, as Ukraine launched a barrage at the capital Moscow. The ruling United Russia party, which backs President Vladimir Putin and has won every parliamentary election in Russia since 2003, is widely expected to secure another victory against the backdrop of the Ukraine war, now grinding through its fifth year. Russia’s Supreme Court struck the anti-war Yabloko party off the ballot weeks before the vote, while all other parties cleared to run back Putin and the Ukraine offensive.
While the results are unlikely to offer many surprises, the election is the first since Moscow launched its Ukraine military campaign in 2022 and could offer clues about public opinion towards the conflict, Europe’s deadliest since World War II. Putin has urged Russians to take part, casting the vote as a show of support for Moscow’s troops and an “answer to those who want to weaken Russia”. The final day of voting was marred by the deaths of two people — a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man, according to Moscow regional Governor Andrey Vorobyov — in Ukrainian drone attacks in the capital that wounded some 20 others.
Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin accused Kyiv of attempting to interfere with the poll, saying Russian air defences had shot down more than 1,600 Ukrainian drones, 450 of which were heading towards the Russian capital. “The unprecedented attack was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections. The enemy did not succeed,” Sobyanin said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the strikes, saying: “Our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night.” A Ukrainian drone strike also hit a bus in part of the country’s southern Kherson region occupied by Moscow, killing two people, including a member of the electoral commission, according to the authorities. – Mobilisation rumours – Campaigning has been limited in the polls, which will determine all 450 seats for Russia’s lower house State Duma and which were set to close at 1800 GMT. United Russia’s main challengers — the Communist Party, the ultra-nationalist LDPR, A Just Russia and New People — all support the war and Putin.
Yabloko, a liberal party that has called for an end to the fighting, was barred fro… Moscow's mayor described the wave of drones as the "largest ever" attack on the Russian capital and said there had been damage to a Moscow oil refinery and a residential building. The attack comes as Russia enters the third and final day of voting in its first wartime parliamentary election.
Ukrainian forces fired more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight, officials said Sunday, including what Moscow’s mayor described as the “largest ever” attack on the Russian capital. An oil refinery was hit in one of the largest attacks so far on the Russian capital, as the country holds a parliamentary election. Meanwhile, at least four people were killed in Russian strikes in Ukraine's Kyiv region.
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