Overview
- Voting opened on a three-day schedule that began Friday and continues through Sunday with ballots cast in Russia and in Moscow-controlled areas of Ukraine.
- Russia’s Central Election Commission chair said the Moscow electronic voting system suffered a “powerful, continuous” cyberattack overnight on Saturday that officials say is being repelled and has not produced detected legal violations.
- Opposition monitors reported repeated denials of access at polling stations and the liberal Yabloko party said one of its observers lost consciousness during an arrest in St. Petersburg.
- For the first time residents in Crimea and parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are voting in a Russian parliamentary election, a move widely rejected by Kyiv and many Western governments.
- The vote is tightly managed with most anti‑war candidates blocked and United Russia widely expected to keep its majority, a result that could strengthen Kremlin claims of domestic backing for its Ukraine policy and deepen diplomatic disputes over legitimacy.