Leaders of Russia’s client and satellite states quickly congratulated President Vladimir Putin after preliminary results showed the pro-Kremlin United Russia party expanding its supermajority in the State Duma, even as Western governments dismissed the election as a preordained farce. The vote, held Sunday, saw United Russia take an estimated 58 percent, with the Communists trailing at 14 percent, according to Russian state media.
The Kremlin blamed the West for attempting to influence and disrupt the election through cyber-attacks, information operations, and even terrorist attacks, but insisted those efforts failed. The election was widely criticized by Western observers, who noted that anti-war parties were barred from participating. A joint declaration from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom labeled the vote a “gross violation… of the UN Charter” and a “sham” attempt to “normalise its occupation”—a reference to voting held in occupied Ukrainian regions that Russia unilaterally annexed.
A chorus of congratulations from allies
Among the first to offer praise was Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, whose country serves as a forward staging point for Moscow’s nuclear weapons. He hailed the “unprecedented turnout of millions of voters and the constitutional majority in the State Duma secured by the United Russia party.” Lukashenko described the result as a proper response to “cynical attempts from the outside to discredit the campaign and sow discord within united Russian society.”
The leaders of the former Soviet ‘Stans’ echoed that sentiment. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said the “high turnover and the outcome of the elections confirm Russian citizens’ unconditional support of the President’s course.” Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev added that the outcome “convincingly demonstrated broad public support for the strategic course of the President.” Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov also congratulated Putin.
Further afield, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the Russian election “successful,” stating that “the outcome reflects the will of the Russian people.”
Moscow claims unprecedented threats
Despite the international applause, Russian officials emphasized the dangers they said the vote faced from outside forces. The chairman of Russia’s electoral commission described an “unprecedented” threat level on polling day. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed to massive Ukrainian drone strikes on election day, calling them an attempt to “sabotage” and “disrupt” the vote—but said they did not succeed.
State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin went further, accusing the “collective West” of actively interfering through drone strikes, cyber attacks, and “information provocations,” a Russian term for what is often called fake news. He insisted these attempts “did not work and never will.”
Of particular concern to foreign observers was that voting took place not only within Russia’s internationally recognized borders but also inside occupied Ukrainian regions that Moscow unilaterally declared part of its territory after annexation. Russia claimed Ukrainian intelligence tried to prevent voting there, with the Kremlin reporting a foiled terror attack against a polling station in Donetsk. According to Russian officials, a perpetrator confessed to receiving $10,000 from Kyiv’s domestic intelligence agency to park a car with 20kg (44lbs) of explosives outside a polling station to kill civilians. Those claims could not be independently verified.
Opposition squeezed out
Ten parties were eligible to stand in Sunday’s elections, but several others were suppressed or otherwise prevented from participating. Russia’s electoral commission had initially allowed a single anti-war protest party, Yobloko, to field candidates, but that decision was quickly reversed. Yobloko was de-registered as a political party in August after being accused of being active on Western social media platforms—which is illegal in Russia—of taking foreign money, and of supporting the “international LGBT movement,” which the Kremlin has listed as an outlawed extremist organization.
The result cements United Russia’s dominance in the lower house of parliament, a body that has rubber-stamped Putin’s agenda for years. Western governments have said they will not recognize the outcome, particularly in the annexed Ukrainian regions, where the vote was seen as an attempt to legitimize occupation. The rush of congratulations from Moscow’s allies, however, underscores the geopolitical divide that has only deepened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/09/22/russian-satellite-states-rush-to-congratulate-putin-after-election-victory/