Russian Party Leaders React as United Russia Retains Parliamentary Majority

Leaders of Russia's political parties responded on Monday to preliminary results of the country's parliamentary elections, after three days of voting that election officials said left the Kremlin's main party with its majority intact.

Results from more than 95 percent of polling stations showed United Russia with just under 58 percent of the vote for the 225 seats allocated by party lists. The Central Election Commission reported that United Russia candidates were leading in 208 of the 225 single-mandate races.

Vladimir Yakushev, United Russia's first deputy chair, said about 86 participants in the special military operation in Ukraine were set to enter the State Duma on the basis of preliminary results. He described the figure as a substantial contribution and noted that two members of the party's youth wing had also won seats, while cautioning that the results were not yet final.

Leonid Slutsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, said the vote was the first parliamentary election the party had contested without its longtime leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who died in 2022. He said the party had improved on its 2021 showing, though perhaps not by as much as it had hoped, and described it as having "rebooted" to meet current conditions.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov accused United Russia of creating obstacles for his party during voting. He said every one of the party's observers had been expelled in Voronezh, a city of more than a million people, and called the elections illegitimate.

Alexei Nechaev, leader of the New People party, thanked those who had supported his party, including voters abroad, and dismissed commentary from foreign analysts and former Russian politicians living overseas who he said were seeking credit for its performance. "Victory always has many fathers," he said.

The election was the first held since President Vladimir Putin ordered the military operation in Ukraine in 2022.