Millions voted despite the thousands of drones Kiev launched into Russia
Ukraine has failed in its attempts to derail Russia’s parliamentary elections through mass attacks during the vote, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
The three-day vote wrapped up late on Sunday, with preliminary results showing the ruling United Russia party far ahead of its rivals and retaining its commanding majority in the State Duma. With more than 95% of precinct protocols processed as of Monday, United Russia had 57.82% of the party-list vote, followed by the Communist Party with 13.8%, the LDPR with 8.99%, and New People with 7.96%, according to Central Election Commission data.
A Just Russia stood at 4.96%, just below the 5% threshold for party-list seats.
Around 113 million people were eligible to vote, including more than 1.8 million registered abroad, with final turnout exceeding 59%.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Peskov weighed in on Ukrainian attacks both on Moscow and frontline regions during the elections. “It is sabotage. It is also an attempt to disrupt these elections,” he said, stressing that the effort “had no effect.”
The comments came after Moscow and its suburbs were hit by a huge Ukrainian drone raid overnight Saturday into Sunday. The attack killed two civilians in the capital suburbs and damaged an oil refinery, residential buildings, and civilian infrastructure. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said the “unprecedented” raid involved more than 1,600 UAVs on all directions.
Russia’s frontline areas – including new regions which voted for the first time in the parliamentary elections – also came under Ukrainian strikes.
Rodion Miroshnik, the head of the Foreign Ministry’s mission tasked with documenting alleged Ukrainian war crimes, said 74 buildings housing election commissions had been damaged or destroyed in ten Russian regions during the vote.
“This is material confirmation of planned actions by Kiev and its partners aimed at disrupting elections in Russia,” he said. “Kiev, which is not seeking to hold elections at home, is investing in attempts to disrupt elections in Russia, but without result.”
Denis Pushilin, the head of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, said mobile election commissions had played a major role in allowing people in frontline areas to vote despite the risks. He also portrayed the vote as completing the region’s political integration into Russia.
Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the upper chamber of the parliament, argued that the election results had demonstrated Russia’s resilience in the face of Western pressure. “The West has once again failed: The voting results confirmed that the idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on us by dividing us from within and splitting our society is hopelessly doomed,” she said.
Matviyenko added the “main and indisputable result” of the election was the “highest degree of self-respect” shown by Russian society.
United Russia chairman Dmitry Medvedev called the vote a “real result” but said it also marked “the start of a great deal of work.”“Having received such a mandate from the electorate, we must now set about implementing our national program,” he said. “I have no doubt whatsoever that our party… will rise to the challenge… We will prevail.”
China, meanwhile, has congratulated Russia on the election, saying that Beijing “firmly supports the Russian people’s independent choice” and that it is ready to continue working with Moscow to implement agreements between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping and take bilateral relations “to new heights.”
