Russia’s Central Election Commission said Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won the State Duma election with 57.83% of the vote and 355 of the 450 seats, beating the party’s previous record of 343, according to Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Turnout was above 59%, and the Communist Party finished second with 40 seats, followed by the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) with 25 and New People with 20. The three-day vote was held without parties critical of the Kremlin or of the war in Ukraine — the only one calling for an end to the fighting was barred from the ballot. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the figures pointed to “the highest level of consolidation within Russian society around the head of state”, while European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas dismissed the “so-called” election and said “the veneer of democracy is all that remains in Russia”. It was the first parliamentary election since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022.