The facts
Russia commenced a three-day parliamentary election on Friday, September 18, 2026, spanning 11 time zones and including electronic voting options. This marks the first parliamentary election held during wartime. The election will determine all 450 seats in the State Duma, with half allocated through party lists and the other half through single-seat constituencies. According to the Associated Press, the Kremlin has largely suppressed meaningful opposition, and the United Russia party is anticipated to maintain its dominant position. Smaller parties that typically align with the government are also expected to retain their seats. The Kremlin has framed the election as a demonstration of public support for the war in Ukraine and a source of governmental legitimacy. Vladimir Putin cast his vote online on Friday. The liberal Yabloko party, identified by AP as the sole registered political entity openly critical of the war, was disqualified from the ballot by Russia's Supreme Court in August. Other politicians opposing the war have faced imprisonment or have fled the country. Voting is also occurring in Ukrainian territories that Russia has occupied and illegally annexed.
Our take
Well, shit. Russia has kicked off its grand, three-day exercise in democratic theater, where the only suspense is whether the state-approved 'yes' men will win by 99 percent or a slightly more believable 98. This is the first parliamentary election held while the country is busy flattening its neighbor, and the Kremlin, in a stunning display of balls the size of ballistic warheads, has decided to frame the whole fucking thing as a public referendum on the invasion. What a bold strategy: ask for a vote of confidence after you've made voting against you a one-way ticket to a prison cell or a foreign exile.
Let's review the 'choices' on offer. The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered group that had the sheer audacity to say the war might be a bad idea, was helpfully disqualified by the Supreme Court back in August. Because nothing says 'vibrant multiparty democracy' like the highest court in the land banning the opposition. Everyone else still on the ballot is either the ruling United Russia party or smaller parties that reliably lick the government's boots. It's like a restaurant menu where every dish is gruel, but you get to pick the bowl. The outcome is so preordained that the only real logistical challenge is getting the ballots to the Ukrainian territories Russia stole, so the people living under occupation can also 'freely' endorse their own conquest.
And the star of the show, Vladimir Putin, has already done his civic duty, casting his vote online. How modern. How convenient. No messy paper trail, just a digital thumbs-up from the boss to signal to the rest of the cowed populace what is expected. The whole process is a pathetic, expensive piece of political performance art designed to manufacture a single, usable headline: 'People Support War.' They've turned an election into a loyalty oath, administered at gunpoint and judicial decree.
So for three days, Russia will go through the motions, pretending this carefully managed farce confers legitimacy. It's the world's most transparent con, a dick-measuring contest where the ruler gets to declare his own ruler the longest. The only thing being solidified here isn't democracy; it's the absolute, shit-stained certainty that in Putin's Russia, the only vote that counts is the one he already cast for himself.
