Russia is holding its first parliamentary elections this weekend since the start of the 2022 conflict in Ukraine — a vote in which authorities say stability and national security are the priorities, while the field of candidates has been narrowed after a clampdown on openly anti-war forces.
The shadow of the conflict looms over proceedings. As Ukrainian forces stepped up strikes on Russian territory, raising fears among the population about civilian harm and infrastructure damage, Russia’s Supreme Court in August barred Yabloko — the country’s only openly anti-war party — from fielding a national list of candidates in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
With dissenting voices largely muted, some opposition figures — including Yulia Navalnaya, widow of detained opposition leader Alexey Navalny — are urging Russians to back candidates who at least avoid outright hostility to state policy on the conflict.
Other critics of the Kremlin argue that this kind of strategy lends legitimacy to elections they claim are a rubber stamp for the government and for policies that Moscow says protect Russian interests.
“To whoever comes to us with a sword — do not expect mercy,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a campaign ad for Putin’s United Russia party, alongside NHL star Alex Ovechkin and RT editor Margarita Simonyan.
Veterans and stability
The Kremlin’s tough approach to opposition candidates reflects concern about public unease caused by strikes on Russian soil.
By keeping anti-war groups off the ballot and elevating candidates who present themselves as defenders of the country, Moscow seeks to project united public backing for measures it calls necessary to defend Russia, says Ivan Preobrazhensky, a Russian political scientist based in Prague. “By electing these candidates, people are endorsing stability and the government’s program,” he said to reporters, even though critics complain that alternatives are limited.
Yabloko had previously won only a sliver of votes in Duma elections — between 1% and 2% — and was long dismissed by the authorities, according to Maxim Reznik, a former party leader in St. Petersburg. Allowing it to run in some form, Reznik said, was meant to show that only a marginal share of Russians oppose current policies.
Still, some Russian outlets suggested Yabloko’s recent positioning as the only party openly calling for peace, along with its push for a ceasefire, had raised its support in certain polls. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported on a July poll from an unnamed agency giving Yabloko around 9.4%. Faridaily, an outlet founded by independent journalist Farida Rustamova, reported internal polling putting the party at about 5.5%.
A month later, the party’s deputy chairman Lev Shlosberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison for what authorities called “discrediting” Russia’s armed forces, and the Supreme Court canceled the party’s registration after proceedings over alleged copyright violations.
Although some Yabloko candidates are allowed to run in single-member constituencies, the main effect of the ruling is to preserve the political dominance of pro-state forces in the Duma.
“There are no decent parties left,” said Maxim Katz, a former municipal councilor in Moscow’s Shchukino district who later worked on opposition campaigns and now lives abroad. “They’re all performing extremes and praising the conflict,” he told reporters — a frustrated observation from an opposition figure.
Ten parties are running lists in the elections, including United Russia, the Communist Party, the nationalist Liberal-Democratic Party, Fair Russia and New People. Those parties have supported the Kremlin’s decisions regarding the eastern regions, and they have backed the state’s messaging on national security.
In lieu of Yabloko’s excluded candidates, the Kremlin has promoted its own alternatives. More than a thousand veterans of the Ukrainian campaign are among those running — including Eduard Shonov, whose record has been publicly debated in the press.
For many Russians the conflict is no longer an abstract issue. Recent Ukrainian strikes against Russian cities and infrastructure have led to fuel shortages and heightened fear of attacks. For a large portion of the country that tolerated the conflict while it felt distant, that tolerance waned once drones and missiles began hitting their cities, Preobrazhensky said.
‘Smart voting’
The Russian opposition is still trying to find ways to influence results in an environment they call repressive.
Navalnaya called the upcoming elections a “propagandistic exercise” for President Putin, and argued it is important to prevent the vote from producing results that could be used to legitimize the government’s policies at home and abroad.
“Our task is to tell the majority of Russians — the anti-war majority, in our view — that despite censorship, fear, and repression, these elections are the last opportunity to safely express protest against the policies of Putin and United Russia,” she said to reporters.
Navalnaya and Katz promote a tactic they call “smart voting” — an endorsement strategy aimed at defeating United Russia by supporting candidates who are against, or at least less supportive of, the government’s course. The approach was pioneered by Alexey Navalny in 2018 after he and many allies were barred from running in earlier contests.
“Smart voting” depends heavily on Yabloko candidates in single-member districts, but since Yabloko is absent from many areas, some endorsements include candidates from the Communists and other parties that are otherwise pro-establishment.
The tactic has faced criticism from within the opposition, including from Yabloko leader Nikolay Rybakov. Voting for parties already in the Duma, he warned, amounts to supporting forces that have backed measures leading to Yabloko members’ legal troubles; he made the point at a St. Petersburg meeting on September 15.
Reznik, the former Yabloko official, told reporters that endorsing candidates is “the wrong bet.” “The results are in the hands of the authorities. They’ll adjust the outcome anyway. Just you wait and see.”
