Why the Outcome of Russia's First Parliamentary Elections in Years Is All But Assured

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin gives a speech during a ceremony to present state awards in the defence industry sector at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 18, 2026. —Alexander Kazakov—AFP/Getty Images Russia is just one day into three-day elections that will determine the makeup of the lower house of the country’s parliament, the State Duma.

But the outcome of the vote has been all but guaranteed since before the first ballots were cast.

The elections, the first parliamentary vote the country has held since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, are widely expected to result in the Kremlin-aligned United Russia party maintaining its overwhelming dominance in the Duma.

The party currently holds 310 of the 450 seats in the chamber, giving it a supermajority and the power to make major legislative decisions without the input of other parties.

It needs to keep at least 300 seats to retain that supermajority.

Four other political parties are also expected to be represented in the Duma following the election, all of which generally vote in line with United Russia and support the war in Ukraine.

They are the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, the A Just Russia party, and the New People party.

Democracy watchdogs and foreign governments have denounced Russia’s elections as being neither free nor fair .

Russian officials have rejected such claims in the past, saying that the country carries out its voting process in line with the law.

But experts tell TIME that the Russian government exerts its influence in ways that all but predetermine the results of elections and ensure that President Vladimir Putin and United Russia maintain control.

And this year’s vote, says David Szakonyi, an expert on Russia and election fraud who is professor at George Washington University, is “occurring in the most repressive political environment in Russia's post-Soviet history.” Here's what experts have to say about how the Kremlin ensures elections result in its desired outcome—and why it continues to hold them.

Restricting opposition The Kremlin uses multiple levers to influence elections on the government level, at the polls, and in daily civilian life, according to Szakonyi.

“Without a doubt, the most powerful tool” in the Kremlin’s arsenal, Szakonyi says, is limiting which candidates appear on the ballot in the first place.

In the case of the ongoing parliamentary vote, the one anti-war party that was registered by the Central Election Commission, the Yabloko party, was prohibited from participating in the election by Russia’s Supreme Court.