On the 2026 undemocratic elections to the Russian State Duma and their implications for civil society

B100445/2026

European Parliament resolution on the 2026 undemocratic elections to the Russian State Duma and their implications for civil society

(2907/2026(RSP))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Russia,

– having regard to the Constitution of the Russian Federation and to the international obligations to which Russia is bound under international law,

– having regard to Opinion No 992/2020 of 23 March 2021 of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) on constitutional amendments and the procedure for their adoption in the Russian Federation,

– having regard to Resolution 2519 (2023) of 13 October 2023 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on examining the legitimacy and legality of the ad hominem term-limit waiver for the incumbent President of the Russian Federation and to the statement issued by the PACE Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces on 18 September 2026,

– having regard to the statement of 21 September 2026 by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on Russian State Duma elections held on 18-20 September 2026 and their non-applicability on Ukrainian territory,

– having regard to UN General Assembly Resolutions ES-11/1 of 2 March 2022 on aggression against Ukraine and ES-11/4 of 12 October 2022 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine,

– having regard to the formal statements of protest issued by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Romania regarding unauthorised polling stations,

– having regard to the joint statement of 21 September 2026 by the governments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom on Russia’s sham elections in Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories,

– having regard to the report entitled ‘Nowhere is safe: exporting the rule of fear beyond borders – transnational repression by the Russian Federation’ submitted on 21 September 2026 to the UN Human Rights Council by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Russia, Mariana Katzarova,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas from 18 to 20 September 2026, the Russian Federation held so-called ‘legislative elections’ to the ninth convocation of the State Duma, including in the Ukrainian territories illegally occupied and annexed by Moscow – the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol and parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions – and in unauthorised polling stations, set up without the consent of the sovereign host governments, in the illegally occupied Transnistria region of the Republic of Moldova and the illegally occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions of Georgia;

B. whereas Russia’s political system remains controlled by an authoritarian, personalist regime under Vladimir Putin that uses tightly managed, rigged electoral exercises to project a facade of legitimacy, eliminate political competition and cement its power, while executing an unprovoked and illegal war of aggression against Ukraine;

C. whereas the 2026 so-called election to the State Duma was the first national legislative vote held under wartime conditions, featuring the expansion of electronic voting across 33 regions, multi-day balloting, coercion and forced voter participation in occupied areas, resulting in a fabricated turnout of 59.58 % and a record majority of 349 out of 450 seats (over 77 %) for the ruling United Russia party;

D. whereas Russian authorities have escalated drastic criminal and judicial reprisals against opposition leaders, civil society activists and anti-war dissidents; whereas prior to the vote, the Kremlin systematically purged the political landscape of all genuine political competition and anti-war voices; whereas in August 2026, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation disqualified Yabloko, the sole registered political party campaigning openly under a pro-peace slogan, from the party-list ballot following a lawsuit brought by the pro-Kremlin Rodina party on spurious grounds and, in doing so, deprived the Russian citizens of their right to vote for a peace platform;

E. whereas in June 2026, Yabloko’s deputy leader Maxim Kruglov was sentenced to seven years in prison for social media posts reporting civilian casualties in Mariupol and Bucha and, in August 2026, another Yabloko deputy chair, Lev Shlosberg, was sentenced to 11 years and one month in a penal colony, while prominent party figures including Nikolay Rybakov, Boris Vishnevskiy and Vladimir Dorokhov have been targeted, designated as ‘foreign agents’ or barred from running;

F. whereas the Kremlin’s paranoia regarding autonomous political mobilisation led to the disqualification of figures even within the systemic opposition, such as communist video blogger Nikolai Bondarenko, demonstrating that the regime suppresses any candidate capable of cultivating an independent public following;

G. whereas on 28 September 2026, the Council sanctioned 10 individuals, including Supreme Court judges, senior officials in the Prosecutor General’s Office and judges involved in barring Yabloko and sentencing opposition politicians;

H. whereas the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Russia, Mariana Katzarova, reported that internal repression had reached alarming levels, with more than 4 000 political prisoners, more than 1 200 individuals and organisations labelled ‘foreign agents’, over 350 organisations banned as ‘undesirable’, and over 5 000 politically motivated criminal cases; whereas more than 100 minors are currently being detained on political or terrorism charges, torture is widespread and systematic, and Russia ranks third in the world for the number of imprisoned journalists, nearly a third of whom are Ukrainian citizens, including Iryna Danylovych;

I. whereas the Kremlin’s repression has increasingly expanded beyond Russia’s borders into a systematic campaign of transnational repression, as documented in the UN Special Rapporteur’s report of 21 September 2026, which records nearly 400 cases of targeted physical violence, assassinations, poisonings (including of Elena Kostyuchenko, Irina Babloyan and Natalia Arno), the recent murder of dissident cartoonist Semyon Skrepetsky in Poland, the abuse of INTERPOL Red Notices, and the propagation of Rosfinmonitoring’s ‘extremist’ list through financial databases such as LSEG World-Check to freeze dissidents’ bank accounts globally;

J. whereas in August 2026, Russian federal law imposed 14 categories of restrictions on listed nationals abroad, stripping exiled citizens of their rights and inflicting ‘civic death’ on hundreds of thousands of Russians who have fled the country since 2022 in the largest wave of political emigration in many decades;

K. whereas Putin’s regime has decimated long-standing human rights organisations, including Memorial and OVD-Info, by branding them ‘extremist’ in April and June 2026, while criminalising major environmental watchdogs such as Greenpeace International, WWF International and Bellona as ‘undesirable organisations’ and replacing them with government-organised non-governmental organisations (GONGOs) under a ‘sovereign ecology’ framework;

L. whereas Putin’s regime promotes the concept of the ‘Russian world’ (‘Russkiy mir’), a nationalist and imperialist ideology centred on the protection of what is referred to as ‘traditional Russian spiritual and moral values’ against perceived Western influence; whereas this concept is used to deny the sovereignty and distinct national identities of neighbouring countries and to justify authoritarian rule and the rejection of democracy and political pluralism in Russia;

M. whereas despite extreme repression, independent Russian civil society and grassroots movements demonstrate remarkable resilience by employing strategies of localised resistance;

N. whereas the Kremlin used the election to manufacture an artificial popular mandate for its war of aggression and potential future military mobilisation, installing 46 war veterans in the Duma as a promoted ‘new elite’, despite credible independent reporting indicating that several newly elected veteran lawmakers face allegations of having committed war crimes in Ukraine;

1. Considers that the so-called elections to the Russian State Duma held from 18 to 20 September 2026 were neither free nor fair, violated fundamental international electoral standards, lacked democratic legitimacy and were a complete sham orchestrated under repression, thereby depriving the citizens of the Russian Federation of their constitutional right to a free and democratic vote;

2. Refuses to recognise the democratic legitimacy of the ninth convocation of the State Duma of the Russian Federation and calls for the EU institutions, the Member States and international partners to continue to suspend routine parliamentary relations, delegation visits and non-essential diplomatic contacts with this illegitimate body;

3. Deeply deplores the suppression of Russian civil society, human rights defenders, independent journalists and opposition activists prior to, during and after the vote; specifically denounces the judicial ban on the Yabloko party, the arbitrary exclusion of candidates and the systemic criminalisation of anti-war sentiment in Russia;

4. Demands the immediate, unconditional release and full political rehabilitation of all political prisoners, human rights defenders, anti-war activists, journalists and detained minors in Russia, including Alexei Gorinov, Lev Shlosberg, Maxim Kruglov, Maria Ponomarenko and Alexander Kynev, and urges the Russian authorities to guarantee them immediate access to independent medical care;

5. Welcomes the Council decision of 28 September 2026 to adopt restrictive measures against 10 individuals involved in the judicial repression of Yabloko, and calls on the Council and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to further expand targeted EU sanctions against Central Election Commission members, judges, prosecutors, Rosfinmonitoring officials, and operatives involved in repression, including transnational repression;

6. Strongly condemns the illegal organisation of these so-called elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and the unauthorised opening of polling stations in the illegally occupied regions of the Republic of Moldova and Georgia as gross violations of international law and state sovereignty;

7. Calls for the EU to make its support for democratic and anti-war Russian civil society structural under the forthcoming multiannual financial framework, thus allocating predictable funding to independent media outlets, human rights defenders and educational initiatives in exile and anti-war movements;

8. Urgently calls for EU action against transnational repression, supporting the UN Special Rapporteur’s recommendation for a binding UN convention on transnational repression; urges the Member States to investigate Russian cross-border threats, scrutinise Russian INTERPOL Red Notices and require financial institutions to cease the application of Rosfinmonitoring’s politically motivated ‘extremist’ lists;

9. Urges the Member States to establish clear, secured and harmonised humanitarian visa procedures and safe haven guarantees, issuing humanitarian visas and residence permits to Russian human rights lawyers, independent journalists and dissidents who are standing up against the current oppressive regime;

10. Commends the resilience of grassroots Russian civil society, including local environmental movements and indigenous rights groups that are protecting local communities; calls for targeted EU support for localised civic initiatives that are resisting state co-optation and ‘sovereign ecology’ GONGOs;

11. Reaffirms its commitment to structured institutional dialogue with Russian democratic and anti-war forces in exile and its rejection of the fatalistic narrative that Russia is doomed to perpetual autocracy;

12. Denounces the inclusion of 46 war veterans in the Duma, noting with grave concern that several newly elected veteran lawmakers face credible allegations of having committed war crimes in Ukraine, and reaffirms that there can be no impunity for war crimes or crimes against humanity;

13. Reaffirms that relations with Russia cannot be normalised without a just and lasting peace for Ukraine based on full territorial integrity, the complete withdrawal of Russian troops, the release of all prisoners of war, detained civilians and forcibly deported Ukrainian children, Russia’s payment of full reparations and compensation to Ukraine and the establishment of full accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity and Russia’s crime of aggression against Ukraine, an end to internal political repression, the restoration of the rule of law and full respect for international law;

14. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the United Nations, and the authorities of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia.