The ruling United Russia party won the latest Duma elections, the first since the large-scale phase of the Ukrainian Conflict began nearly half a decade ago, despite foreign efforts to influence voters into dealing it a defeat. Their share of the popular vote this year was ~58% compared to 49.82% in 2021 while turnout was ~59% compared to 51.72% last time around. These results show that voters rallied around United Russia, arguably in defiance of foreign pressure, which requires an explanation given the context.
United Russia’s social contract was that it would provide economic growth, security, and stay away from citizens’ personal lives for the most part if the party remains in power. Since the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine entered its most intense phase in early 2022, however, the economy has declined, the border regions (especially those that reunified with Russia) are much less safe, and internet restrictions have inconvenienced some Russians. These trends didn’t bode well for United Russia leading up to the vote.
Zelensky’s 40-day influence operation over the summer, which was backed by the US and interestingly also France, didn’t just aim to coerce Putin into a ceasefire. Its unstated dual goal was to exacerbate the aforesaid trends for the purpose of influencing voters into either boycotting the elections or casting their ballot for any party but United Russia as a form of protest due to the expectation that they’d blame it for their woes. Ukraine and the West hoped that this would then place more pressure upon Putin to give up.
Instead, it tremendously backfired by provoking Putin to mildly “escalate to de-escalate” to the delight of most Russians, who wanted him to do so for a while already and were becoming anxious because he hadn’t done so yet. This took the form of him authorizing systematic strikes against Ukraine’s gas stations, ports, and now also locomotives to complement existing strikes against its power plants, with the combined effect of this campaign raising the chances of a decisive Russian victory by next spring.
Moreover, many of those Russians who experienced hardships due to Zelensky’s Western-backed influence campaign over the summer blamed them, not United Russia. This further contextualizes why the party’s share of the popular vote grew to its highest level since 2007 (64.30%) and turnout reached its highest one since 2011 (60.10%). Ukraine and the West expected that his campaign would lead to United Russia either having to form a coalition and/or turnout plummeting to discredit its victory.
To be clear, those who didn’t vote for United Russia aren’t “traitors” nor “useful idiots” of Russia’s adversaries, since nobody is questioning the patriotism of those parties that participated in the election. The vast majority of them probably just wanted to signal which general direction they want the government to go. For example, supporters of the Communist Party presumably want more socio-economic reforms, while those of the Liberal-Democratic Party presumably want more nationalist ones.
All in all, Russia’s latest Duma elections showed that most Russians trust Putin to continue with the course that he’s charted despite events over the past half-decade impeding United Russia’s ability to implement its social contract. Foreign efforts to influence voters into dealing a defeat to them also backfired by inspiring many to defiantly rally around it. Just as importantly, Russia proved that elections can be held during wartime, so Ukraine has no excuse for continuing to postpone its own on this pretext.
