The China Mail - Putin's party set to retain power after Russia vote hit by cyberattacks, drones

The election, held to elect members in all seats of the lower house State Duma, is the first since Moscow launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

No party opposed to the war was allowed to run, with Russia's Supreme Court removing the anti-war Yabloko party off the ballot weeks before the vote.

Voting also took place in Ukrainian territories occupied and annexed by Russia.

Turnout could offer a barometer of public opinion towards Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II.

According to results reported by Russian news agencies after just over 71 percent of ballots were counted, United Russia took 57.5 percent of the vote.

The Communist Party and LDPR nationalists trailed behind on 14 and 8.7 percent respectively.

The ruling party is on course to retain its two-thirds majority of the 450 seats in the State Duma, allowing it to amend the constitution, according to projections by the state agency TASS.

The first official results and turnout will be expected on Monday morning.

Ukraine fired waves of drones at Moscow and the surrounding region on the final day of voting on Sunday, killing two people and setting an oil refinery ablaze, officials said.

Russia vowed it would "intensify" its strikes on Kyiv in response, with the defence ministry accusing Ukraine of attempting to "disrupt the democratic will of Russian citizens".

An exit poll published by a state-run pollster showed United Russia on course to win 49.4 percent of the vote, close to the same amount it achieved in the previous election.

"In response to the Kyiv regime's attacks on civilian targets within Russia, the Russian army will continue and intensify its high accuracy strikes against military targets in Kyiv," the Russian defence ministry said.

- Wave of Ukrainian drones -

The Ukrainian attack was the largest on Moscow since the start of the war and involved around 1,600 drones, 450 of which were aimed directly at the capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Images showed a gaping hole in a multi-storey apartment building on the outskirts of the capital, while another showed black smoke billowing from what appeared to be an oil refinery.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the attacks, saying "our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night".

While diplomatic efforts to end the war have not prevented mutual strikes from escalating in recent months, Zelensky spoke by phone with US President Donald Trump, who in recent days has urged Kyiv to stop its attacks on Russian refineries.

The pair are expected to meet in New York in the coming days.

At least two people were killed -- a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man -- in two separate locations, Moscow regional Governor Andrey Vorobyov said.

A fire triggered by a drone crashing into a 21-storey building also led to 400 people being evacuated, Vorobyov added.

Ukraine has targeted Russian infrastructure with drones throughout the war, in retaliation for Russian bombardment of its own towns and cities.

Yabloko -- a liberal party that had called for an end to the fighting -- was barred from running its federal list by Russia's Supreme Court, although its candidates remained on the ballot in some single-mandate constituencies.

Putin had urged Russians to take part, casting the vote as a show of support for Moscow's troops and an "answer to those who want to weaken Russia".

The Kremlin's chief political opponents have been driven into exile, while Putin's main rival, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison in 2024.

Navalny's widow Yulia Navalnaya called on anti-war Russians to collectively cast their ballots at noon on Sunday, a tactic that drew crowds in the 2024 presidential election.

In Berlin and London, AFP reporters saw dozens of opposition supporters gathered outside Russian embassy buildings in protest at the vote.

- Cyberattacks -

As voting entered a final day, Russia's electoral chief said there had been a wave of cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure.

Ella Pamfilova, chair of Russia's Central Election Commission, did not say who was responsible.

The attacks appeared to have been carried out by "highly professional, well-coordinated groups using artificial intelligence tools," she said.

"Over the past period, more than 1,000 waves of DDoS attacks have been recorded against infrastructure in Russia that is specifically involved in the electoral process," Pamfilova was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks involve overwhelming a system with internet traffic so that it is unable to function normally.

She warned on Saturday that saboteurs had also severed communication lines in Russia's far east, in an apparent attempt to frustrate the voting.

Z.Huang--ThChM