United Russia’s 355 seats: what Russia’s ballot actually allowed voters to choose

United Russia, the party tied to Vladimir Putin, has taken 355 of the 450 seats in Russia’s State Duma, according to preliminary results released by the Central Election Commission. With more than 95 percent of ballots counted, the party stands at 57.83 percent of the vote. On paper, that is a commanding electoral win. The more consequential question is what the vote actually put in front of Russian citizens, because this was the first national legislative election held since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and no genuine anti-war party appeared on the federal ballot.

Yabloko’s exclusion and the shrinking field

The clearest illustration is Yabloko, the liberal party that had been the last national political force openly opposed to the war. It campaigned on a platform called “For Peace and Freedom.” On August 10, Russia’s Supreme Court cancelled the party’s federal list for the Duma elections, acting on a complaint filed by the Rodina party. The court cited donations received from individuals who had themselves benefited from foreign funds, posts on digital platforms, and copyright issues in some campaign materials.

Yabloko rejects those grounds and says its removal was really about its pacifist platform. That is the party’s position, not a judicially established fact. Russian courts upheld the exclusion of the federal list. Yabloko’s subsequent challenge before the Supreme Court failed, and the party ultimately filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court.

The political outcome is significant: the only nationwide formation that openly opposed the war and still had access to the electoral race disappeared from the federal ballot.

A crackdown that predates this vote

Yabloko’s removal was not an isolated event. Over several years, Russian authorities have steadily narrowed the space available to parties and figures who challenge presidential power.

Even before the 2026 election, organizations linked to Alexei Navalny had been designated “extremist,” while several opposition figures were jailed, pushed into exile, or barred from running. In the 2021 legislative elections, authorities used legal provisions to block some Navalny-linked activists from standing as candidates.

The current situation is therefore not a straightforward contest between parties with competing programs. Voters still had multiple ballots and multiple parties took part, but the main forces on offer did not represent an opposition comparable to the Kremlin on the central issue of the war.

The Communist Party, the LDPR, A Just Russia, and New People were among the main formations allowed to compete. Yet no anti-war party was permitted to take part in the federal vote.

Who was on the ballot

• United Russia: the ruling party associated with Vladimir Putin
• Communist Party: a long-standing parliamentary force
• LDPR: a nationalist-leaning party
• A Just Russia: a social-democratic-leaning party
• New People: a newer party with a liberal-conservative profile

None of these formations campaigned on a platform comparable to Yabloko’s explicit anti-war stance.

No OSCE observers on the ground

Another factor weighing on the vote’s international credibility: Russia did not invite the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to deploy an election observation mission.

The OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights criticized the decision in August. According to the organization, Moscow did not respond substantively to its efforts to arrange an assessment mission. The OSCE also notes that restrictions imposed since previous elections have further reduced opportunities for independent scrutiny of the electoral process.

The organization points in particular to restrictions on candidates designated as “foreign agents,” on campaign financing, on the ability of parties to appoint representatives at polling stations, and on the conditions under which citizen observers can work.

The OSCE also highlights that Golos, the independent election-monitoring movement, was dissolved after years of pressure from Russian authorities. The absence of independent oversight does not by itself prove that any individual result was falsified. It does, however, deprive voters and foreign observers of an independent mechanism for assessing the process as a whole.

A supermajority that extends beyond election day

With 355 seats, the pro-Kremlin party retains a two-thirds majority in the Duma. That gives it considerable capacity to back the Kremlin’s direction and pass legislation requiring a reinforced majority.

One conclusion should still be avoided: the result does not automatically mean that 57.83 percent of Russia’s population endorses the war in Ukraine or the whole of Vladimir Putin’s policy. An election result reflects votes cast within a given institutional framework. In this case, the available choices were themselves heavily constrained.

That distinction sits at the heart of the debate over Russia’s 2026 vote. The question is not only how many votes United Russia won, but also which voices and political alternatives were allowed to run.

Reading the result in context

United Russia’s dominance in the announced results is not in dispute. But analyzing the election cannot stop at the seat count.

Yabloko’s exclusion, the restrictions placed on opposition candidates and organizations, the absence of OSCE observers, and the broader climate of political repression all shape how this vote should be understood.

The Duma emerging from these polls will be overwhelmingly dominated by Vladimir Putin’s party. Yet the composition of that assembly should be read against an electoral contest in which open opposition to the war had no real national space to present its platform to voters.

Under those conditions, United Russia’s 355 seats are a major electoral fact. They do not, on their own, measure support across Russian society for the war in Ukraine. Above all, they demonstrate the authorities’ ability to preserve parliamentary dominance in a political system where the conditions for opponents to participate have become extremely restrictive.

By Claire Mvondo — Security and State Policy Expert