Star Metro - Russians vote as Ukraine war drags on for fifth year

It is Russia's first parliamentary election since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022. The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands.

Only parties that support both Putin and the Kremlin's military campaign have been registered to run. Moscow has also organised voting in occupied Ukraine.

While few Russians doubt Putin's United Russia party will cruise to victory again, the vote offers a gauge of public support for the war, whose effects have hit home more than ever this year.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Kyiv launched 350 drones at the Moscow region overnight, adding most were destroyed.

Voting to fill all 450 seats in the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, runs until 1800 GMT on Sunday.

Putin has ruled Russia since 1999 and his United Russia party has dominated politics since the early 2000s.

Moscow has banned criticism of its Ukraine campaign, and elections under Putin rarely produce surprises.

At a central Moscow polling station, 41-year-old rail worker Sergei Korenets said he will back United Russia, voting for "stability" -- echoing Putin's main slogan.

Asked whether four-and-a-half years of war amounts to "stability", Korenets said: "Of course, I want all this (the war) to end as quickly as possible."

But he did not want change at home, he said, as "I am satisfied from the point of view of my financial situation".

Despite sweeping Western sanctions, Russia's economy has not collapsed and life in the capital remains relatively normal even as Moscow bombards Ukrainian cities daily.

- Soviet-style censorship -

United Russia faces only parties that broadly back Putin's policies and the war: the Communist Party, the nationalist LDPR, A Just Russia and New People.

Yabloko, which called for an end to the fighting, was barred from running shortly before the vote. One of its main figures, Lev Shlosberg, was imprisoned for criticising the war.

Russia has since 2022 introduced Soviet-style censorship and jailed the war's critics.

"I am fully for the special military operation," 55-year-old Lyubov told AFP in Moscow, using the Kremlin's term for its offensive.

"NATO cannot be at our borders," she added, repeating one of Putin's arguments for launching the war.

But she criticised some social policies, still upset by Putin raising the pension age several years back.

"I want a return to the Soviet economic system," she told AFP.

Older voters remain among Putin's strongest supporters, though many still complain about living standards.

Ahead of the vote, the 73-year-old leader urged Russians to vote to show troops that "behind our fighters stand millions of people" and to deliver an "answer to those who want to weaken Russia".

- Mobilisation fears -

With public debate largely absent and protests banned, the vote may offer the Kremlin a measure of frustration over a war with no end in sight.

This year, the conflict hit ordinary Russians more than ever, with Ukrainian strikes reaching as far as the Urals and Siberia.

Some fear the post-election period in Russia will bring a new military mobilisation, similar to the 2022 call-up of 300,000 reservists.

That deeply unpopular move triggered a mass exodus of draft-age men.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused the Kremlin of planning a fresh mobilisation drive this autumn, an allegation Putin has denied.

Putin's political opponents have mostly been driven into exile and his main opponent Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic prison in 2024.

Russia's exiled opposition has urged anti-Kremlin Russians not to boycott the elections but instead vote "against Putin's party".

Navalny's widow Yulia Navalnaya also called on anti-war Russians to cast their ballots at noon on Sunday.

Yabloko disagrees, arguing that it was better not to vote.

"You are suggesting that we once again go, like sheep, dancing to their tune, and vote for those who have caused the deaths of people in Russia and Ukraine?" party chairman Nikolay Rybakov said this week.

L.Girard--SMC