United Russia leads Duma vote as OSCE observers are not invited and voting extends to occupied Ukraine

Nearly 58% on the party list, but the result is still preliminary

Russia's three-day State Duma election ended on September 20. With more than 95% of precinct reports processed, the Central Election Commission said United Russia had 57.83% of the federal party-list vote. Commission chair Ella Pamfilova put turnout at 59.32%.

The State Duma has 450 seats. Half are allocated through party lists and the other 225 are elected in single-member constituencies.

At the 95.18% stage of the count, election officials said United Russia candidates were winning 208 single-member districts and projected a total of 355 seats for the party — more than two-thirds of the chamber.

That figure should still be treated as provisional.

After 96.95% of precinct reports had been processed, A Just Russia reached the 5% threshold in the federal party-list vote. When the commission announced its earlier 355-seat projection for United Russia, A Just Russia stood at 4.96% and was below the threshold. The final distribution of party-list seats therefore remains subject to the completed count.

The Central Election Commission says final results are due on September 25.

The central issue is not only who received the most votes

This was Russia's first State Duma election since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Reuters reported that President Vladimir Putin had framed the election as a test of public support for the war. That makes the conditions of political competition particularly relevant when interpreting the official percentages.

Yabloko, described by AP and Reuters as Russia's only registered party openly opposing the war, did not appear on the federal party-list ballot. Russia's Supreme Court removed its list in August, although some Yabloko candidates remained in single-member races.

The official result therefore shows how votes were distributed among candidates and parties allowed to compete. By itself, it cannot establish the level of support for the war across the entire Russian electorate.

Russia did not invite an OSCE election observation mission

On August 6, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly said Russia had not invited their observers to the State Duma election.

The organizations said the decision was inconsistent with Russia's commitments as an OSCE participating State. According to the OSCE, this is the third consecutive nationwide Russian electoral process it has been unable to observe.

The OSCE also pointed to legal changes restricting candidacy for people designated as “foreign agents,” tighter campaign-finance rules and reduced opportunities for parties to appoint polling-station representatives. It separately cited sustained pressure on the independent Golos election-monitoring movement, which ultimately dissolved.

Russia's Foreign Ministry has accused the OSCE of applying “double standards” and said Moscow invited representatives of individual states and other international organizations instead.

Election officials call the vote clean; parties reported irregularities

Pamfilova described the campaign as exceptionally clean and calm. At the same time, Russian election officials acknowledged at least two ballot-stuffing incidents, in Crimea and Mari El.

Yabloko and the Communist Party reported cases in which their observers were denied access to polling stations, as well as other alleged irregularities. AP noted that some of those allegations could not be independently verified. They should therefore be presented as party claims rather than established facts.

Voting was also organized in occupied Ukrainian territory

A separate legal dispute concerns where Russia conducted the election.

Voting was organized in occupied Crimea and Sevastopol and in Russian-controlled parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine.

AP documented voting in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region where an armed Russian soldier stood near the ballot box.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said on September 18 that Kyiv recognizes neither the organization of the vote in occupied Ukrainian territory nor its results, arguing that occupation does not give Russia sovereign rights over those areas.

The European Union issued a similar statement on September 21, saying it would not recognize the elections or their results in occupied Ukrainian territories and that people involved in organizing them would face sanctions.

What can be said at this stage

The official count clearly leaves United Russia with the largest representation in the next State Duma. The precise number of seats, however, should remain labelled preliminary until the count and allocation are complete.

The 57.83% figure should also not be treated as a stand-alone measure of Russian society's support for the war. The election took place without an OSCE observation mission, with a restricted field of political competition and with voting in internationally recognized Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation.

The commission's final arithmetic is expected on September 25. How representative the result is of free political choice remains disputed among Russian authorities, opposition actors and international institutions.