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Nine parties appear on Russia's State Duma ballot this week, every one of them supportive of President Vladimir Putin, as three days of voting that opened Friday extend into occupied Ukrainian territory for the first time since the 2022 invasion.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe was not invited to send observers, a breach that OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Pere Joan Pons described as showing "a worrying disregard for democratic standards." The ballot and what's off it Russia's Supreme Court banned the opposition Yabloko Party from September's elections ahead of the vote.
Its leader, Lev Shlosberg, a critic of the war and head of one of Russia's only opposition parties, was sentenced to over 11 years in a penal colony for speaking against the military operation.
The nine parties that remain are all aligned with the Kremlin, including Putin's own United Russia. Moscow annexed Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia shortly after the 2022 invasion.
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