People vote in Russian parliamentary elections at a polling station in Moscow, September 18, 2026.
Igor Ivanko | AFP | Getty Images
Russia’s ruling United Russia party is on track to easily win a parliamentary election cast by President Vladimir Putin as a test of his support for the war in Ukraine, partial official results revealed on Sunday, after Ukraine launched a massive drone attack on the Russian capital.
In a tightly controlled political system that critics say does not tolerate genuine dissent, initial results showed United Russia comfortably ahead with 57.5% of the vote. Other parties, including the Communists, the ultranationalist Freedom Party, the New People’s Party, and the Just Russia Party, which all vote with United Russia on key issues, were on track to win seats in the State Duma (lower house), albeit by large margins.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council and former president, immediately declared that United Russia had acted with dignity, saying the result showed that the Russian people entrusted United Russia with further governance.
Russian officials accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt the State Duma vote after Kiev launched hundreds of drones toward Moscow and other regions (the first since Russia launched a full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022). The attack was the largest of its kind since the start of the war, TASS reported.
Drone strikes killed three people in the Moscow region and two more, including an election worker, in the Russian-controlled region of Ukraine’s Kherson region, according to the region’s governor and election commission.
A photo shows a damaged high-rise apartment building following a drone attack in Kotelniki, Moscow region, on September 20, 2026. Hundreds of drones targeted Moscow and surrounding areas, killing at least two people and damaging a major oil refinery on the final day of the country’s parliamentary elections, authorities said on September 20, 2026.
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A refinery facility in Moscow, which was previously targeted, was also damaged. As voting began in the capital, flames and huge columns of smoke rose from the suburban venue.
“The largest attack by enemy drones has been repulsed,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram. “This unprecedented attack was clearly designed to disrupt the election. Our adversaries were not successful.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Ukraine also fired Flamingo cruise missiles and shot down nearly 2,000 Ukrainian drones and eight cruise missiles targeting various regions in the past 24 hours. In response, it announced that it would step up its own attacks on military targets in Ukraine.
Officials say voting system suffered a cyberattack
Voting systems were also hit by a wave of cyberattacks, but the election process remained mostly smooth, election officials said.
Exiled Russian rebels called on those opposed to authorities to line up at polling stations at noon to express their opposition, with long lines forming in some areas. However, it was unclear how that affected the overall results.
The Kremlin is likely to present the results as evidence of the public’s support for Putin’s policies and the war, which is now in its fifth year and shows no signs of ending soon.
Ela Panfilova, head of the Central Election Commission (CEC), said the attacks did not deter voters. “The more pressure they put on us, the more we will see an unprecedented level of what I would call national unity,” RIA news agency quoted her as saying.
Voter turnout was nearly 57% as of evening Moscow time, according to CEC data.
Most antiwar candidates were excluded from the vote. Those running for the liberal Yabloko party, which has polled in single digits in recent years, hoped to capitalize on war fatigue and said their freedoms were threatened after a court sentenced two senior party officials to long prison sentences before a vote to comment on the conflict.
Discrediting the military or spreading what authorities consider fake news carries long prison terms.
In an apparent small act of defiance, Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov defaced the ballot paper, writing his party’s name and the slogan “For Peace” on it.
The Kremlin says it needs national unity and a degree of censorship during what it calls a special military operation in Ukraine. The conflict was Europe’s deadliest since World War II and is portrayed as part of an existential struggle against hostile Western powers. The Russian government said Ukrainian intelligence services and other adversaries were stepping up efforts to stoke unrest in Russia.
Allowed opposition parties may benefit
Kiev, which has suspended elections under martial law, dismissed the Russian vote as a “sham election.”
Although experts see the election outcome as expected, NEST, a Berlin think tank co-founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Kremlin critic whom Russian authorities have designated as a “foreign agent,” said the vote could still create an awkward moment for the Kremlin amid economic tensions.
The newspaper said the Communist Party and the New People’s Party could attract votes that authorities hope will support United Russia.
“The effects of the war are increasingly being felt in the country, and the accumulated anxiety and dissatisfaction may lead to votes for the established opposition, which the Kremlin has allowed to remain on the ballot paper,” the ministry said in a note.
