🔻 Incumbent party leads in Russia parliamentary elections

The initial results of Russia’s election show that the ruling party, United Russia, is far ahead in parliamentary elections held over three days.

Backed by Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, the party has managed to retain two-thirds of the seats in parliament.

In the absence of opposition parties to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the victory of this party was largely to be expected.

The liberal party Yabloko, an anti-war party, had been removed from the electoral list.

Other parties that will make it into Russia’s parliament (the Duma) largely support initiatives and policies of the Kremlin.

It appears that Mr. Putin is benefiting from these results in affirming broad public support for his policies, especially in the war with Ukraine.

The election is being held while Moscow’s mayor had said that in the past two days, Ukraine had attacked the Russian capital with hundreds of drones.

Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow’s mayor, described these attacks as the biggest drone attack on the city and said that from Saturday, at least 450 drones had targeted Moscow.