Vladimir Putin militarizes the Russian parliament

The Kremlin has turned the parliament produced by last Sunday’s Russian legislative elections into an echo chamber for the war. Authorities barred the only party that had called for a truce, Yabloko, as well as candidates who were critical of the government — from independent Boris Nadezhdin to members of parties nominally loyal to the Kremlin such as the Communist Party and A Just Russia. In addition, the military are gradually displacing party bureaucrats in Russian politics.

Vladimir Yakushev, secretary of United Russia’s general council, announced that 49 veterans of the invasion of Ukraine will, in principle, enter the lower house. That is roughly one in every 10 seats in a Duma of 450.

Putin’s party won more votes on this occasion than in the prewar elections. The result flies in the face of logic given the Kremlin’s failure in the invasion of Ukraine — a conflict that is already longer for Russians than World War I or World War II — the severe economic crisis gripping the country, and the state’s intrusion into people’s lives. If United Russia took 49.8% in 2021, this year it has 57.96% with 97.37% of ballots counted at time of publication.

Moreover, the prospect of a military victory or a negotiated peace in the medium-term seems distant. After more than a year and a half of negotiations with Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a new package of sanctions against Russia.

“This does not contribute to the revival of our relations and is unlikely to help make more successful progress toward a solution to the Ukrainian conflict,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Monday.

Yakushev’s announcement has been mired in a controversial retraction. Hours earlier, he had stated that there would be 86 military personnel, but his remarks were deleted from all state media outlets. Every seat in the State Duma and the salary that comes with it are a reward for Putin’s loyalists, and programs aimed at bringing military personnel into politics have so far faced resistance from members of the ruling party who are reluctant to make room for them.

“[The entry of the military] represents a significant contribution. These are preliminary results, but it is very important. The president [Putin] has also referred to this,” Yakushev stressed.

The Russian leader emphasized the importance of bringing the military into politics in a message to the nation on the eve of the vote. “Your choice and your will will once again demonstrate that millions of people support our soldiers, that we are a united people,” Putin said.

Still, the new figure cited by United Russia is lower than the roughly 100 deputies the party initially estimated, according to RBK. Some of those elected are former politicians who enlisted in the army, although in many cases it is unclear whether they were sent to the front as assault troops or served in other rear-area roles.

So far only the identities of some of the military personnel elected in single-member districts are known. They include Wagner Group veteran Kirill Tikhonovich, who fought in eastern Ukraine in 2014 despite Moscow’s denials of his involvement in the Donbas conflict, and Vladislav Gusev, who took part in that war and in the Syrian Civil War.

The KPRF again accuses fraud

The head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), Gennady Zyuganov, has resurrected ghosts of the past by suggesting the same theft that was committed against Boris Yeltsin in 1996 may have been repeated. “Unfortunately, during the election campaign, trends from the feared 1990s have been seen. This must not be allowed in any way,” Zyuganov said after pointing out that official figures “do not reflect the real picture.”

“There are entire regions, for example in Voronezh, in a city of one million inhabitants, where they illegally removed all observers,” Zyuganov, leader of the second-largest party in the vote, with 13.8% support, said.

Despite the fraud allegations, his party does not plan to protest or take to the streets. On the contrary, it has reiterated its support for the invasion of Ukraine. “The party has supported the war from day one and will continue to do so,” its vice chairman, Vladimir Kashin, said after the vote. According to the senior official, their results give the party “legitimacy and popular support” to keep backing the invasion.

The stance of the Communist Party’s leaders contrasts with that of some party members and other voters outside the party who favor peace. Several opposition groups in exile, including Yulia Navalnaya’s, urged people to vote for the Communist Party as a way to oppose United Russia.

The Kremlin’s objective was to turn the elections into a demonstration of popular support for the war. Russian political scientist Farida Rustamova noted on her Telegram channel that turnout — at more than 56%, according to the Central Election Commission — is “completely unrealistic in the context of an almost non-existent campaign, where parties, de facto, did not run serious campaigns or compete with each other.”

The parties didn’t just slash their budgets to pitiful levels. In Russian cities, there were hardly any campaign posters from United Russia’s supposedly rival factions, while propaganda from Putin’s party was minimal. This apathy went so far that some candidates didn’t even show up for the live debates.

“One possible reason could be officials wanting to show Putin the same quality of results as in the 2024 presidential election. On that occasion they organized the largest turnout in modern history to demonstrate popular support for the war and for their commander in chief,” Rustamova added.

Russians are wondering what will happen with the war after the elections. The shadow of a new forced mobilization of the population hangs in the air four years on. Putin has denied this emphatically a couple of times, but authorities have ramped up pressure in recent months for the most vulnerable citizens to sign contracts with the army.

The analysis center Riddle conducted a survey of 10 military experts and 16 political analysts. The majority concluded that the Kremlin will carry out a covert mobilization in the coming months, a gradual recruitment in some regions to make up for the decline in volunteer numbers.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition